Abstract
Focusing on 13 OECD countries over 25 years, we examine the factors that explain why a sizable fraction of wage-earners exhibit an inconsistency between their union membership status and their confidence in unions by being either confident non-members or non-confident members. While structural factors associated with joining constraints generate inconsistency in specific labour market categories, wage-earners who have extreme ideological orientations and are highly interested in politics are much less likely to exhibit inconsistency across time and countries. For individuals who have intermediate ideological orientations and are not very interested in politics, differences in terms of non-member and member inconsistency between countries are explainable through contextual variables such as economic conditions, the level of employment protection, and historical legacies. Implications for union membership research and union strategies are discussed.
Highlights
Focusing on 13 OECD countries over 25 years, we examine the factors that explain why a sizable fraction of wage-earners exhibit an inconsistency between their union membership status and their confidence in unions by being either confident non-members or nonconfident members
The goal of this paper is to build on this recent research by zooming in on a relevant segment of wage-earners, that is, those that exhibit an inconsistency between their union membership status and their confidence in unions by being either non-members who trust unions or members who are distrustful of unions
We argue that examining the reasons behind non-member and member inconsistency is the key element to understand why union membership and union confidence follow increasingly diverging trends
Summary
Focusing on 13 OECD countries over 25 years, we examine the factors that explain why a sizable fraction of wage-earners exhibit an inconsistency between their union membership status and their confidence in unions by being either confident non-members or nonconfident members. Focusing on non-member inconsistency, these contextual trends have increased the objective obstacles many wage-earners face to joining unions.
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