Union Membership does not pay

Mathieu Bunel (1) , Gilles Raveaud (2)

1 CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management
2 UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis

We used a French employer-employee representative survey to estimate, within private firms covered by union contracts, the union member wage premium. Our estimates are based on several methods: ordinary least squares with averaged individual characteristics at the workplace level, the propensity score and separated equations. We found no wage penalty for non union members. There exists a union membership wage premium for blue collar and office workers, which is of a limited amount (around 3%). Thus, for most workers in France, there is no important financial gain associated with union membership.

Mots clés: Union wage premium; union membership; employer-employee data; propensity score method; separated equations method

Domaines: Economies et finances

Mathieu Bunel, Gilles Raveaud. Union Membership does not pay. 2011. ⟨halshs-00868217⟩