Men, women and unions

• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Author: Getinet Astatike Haile
• Date: 01 May 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12324

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Men, women and unions

Getinet Astatike Haile

1,2

1

Department of Industrial Economics,

Nottingham University Business School,

University of Nottingham,

Nottingham, UK

2

IZA Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn,

Germany

Correspondence

Getinet Astatike Haile, Department of

Industrial Economics, Nottingham

University Business School, The

University of Nottingham, South

Building, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton

Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK.

Email: getinet.haile@nottingham.ac.uk

Abstract

The paper examines whether workplace gender dynam-

ics contributed to the decline of unions. To this end, it

reviews relevant literature and proposes three hypothe-

ses, which it then tests using alternative empirical ana-

lyses and data from Workplace Employment Relations

Survey (WERS) and British Social Attitudes Survey

(BSAS). The results from employee-level analysis reveal

that, compared with women, (i) men were significantly

less likely to have never been union members and

(ii) they were also significantly more likely to have

been union members in the past. In addition,

workplace-level analysis using WERS reveals that there

is an inverse link between union membership and the

share of women in workplaces, which is also found to

have a non-linear form. The paper ponders if unions

may need to encompass broader agenda than those

informed by the median voter to improve their fate.

1|INTRODUCTION

There is extensive literature on the decline of unions in Britain since the 1970s. Some of the key

reasons underpinning the sweeping decline include unions' failure to organise in new establish-

ments, particularly outside of their traditional manufacturing base; increased competitive pres-

sures; legislative changes; and changes in the composition of the workforce (Blanchflower &

Bryson, 2008; Blanden et al., 2006; Brown & Nash, 2008; Bryson, 2008; Bryson & Gomez, 2003;

Disney et al., 1995, 1996; Freeman & Pelletier, 1990; Machin, 2000, 2003; Willman et al., 2007).

Received: 6 November 2018 Revised: 1 February 2021 Accepted: 22 February 2021

DOI: 10.1111/irj.12324

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits

use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or

adaptations are made.

© 2021 The Author. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Ind. Relat. 2021;52:201–217. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/irj 201

A related feature of the labour market over this period has been the increase in the share of

women in workplaces—dubbed as the ‘influx of women’(Parker, 2002, p. 23)—which changed

the gender composition of workplaces and unions.

1

The increase in the share of working women took the form of precarious employment pre-

dominantly (Fredman, 2004; Pollert & Charlwood, 2009). However, more recent evidence

points to a significant increase in women employment also taking the form of full-time employ-

ment, which has increased from 29% in 1985 to 44% in 2017 (Roantree & Vira, 2018). Notwith-

standing the perspective of ‘core–periphery’or ‘insider–outsider’explanation in union

membership (Benassi, 2013; Benassi & Dorigatti, 2015; Pulignano et al., 2015), it is reasonable

to expect more and more women to have been joining unions over this period given unions'

well-recognised role in addressing the challenges women face at work.

If there has been an ‘influx of women’to the labour market in recent decades and if more

and more of them were likely to have joined unions, then a fall in men's membership must be a

key factor behind the observed decline in union membership over the period. Indeed, recent

official statistics are in support of this view (BEIS, 2020). The reason why men might have aban-

doned unions can be linked to unions' utility function. As Booth (1994) and Bryson et al. (2019)

explain, unions' preferences are likely to be dictated by the median voter, which women have

become as more and more of them join unionised workplaces. If unions were to advance causes

such as the gender pay gap and the promotion of work–life balance, which are predominantly

woman-centric, men's demand for union membership could fall as per the union demand/sup-

ply framework (Bryson & Gomez, 2003; Farber & Krueger, 1993).

This paper attempts to test empirically three hypotheses relating to possible gender differen-

tials in union entry and exit probabilities, which forms an employee-level analysis, as well as a

workplace-level analysis examining whether there is a link between union density and the

share of women in workplaces. To this end, we use data from the British Workplace Employ-

ment Relations Survey (WERS) and the British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS). The literature

review points to potentially divergent interests between men and women, which may be

informed by the median voter argument. The empirical results obtained suggest that men were

significantly unlikely to have never been union members vis-à-vis women and significantly

more likely to have been past union members, thus suggesting a gender differential in union

entry/exit probabilities. They also reveal a significant negative relationship between union den-

sity and the share of women in workplaces.

It is widely acknowledged that unions have struggled to establish in non-traditional sectors.

However, maintaining the size of their existing membership where they are already established

seems to be an achievable goal. This they may do through changing their membership prefer-

ences, by encompassing broader interests within than just those informed by the median voter.

The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 provides a review of the literature

and develops testable hypotheses. Section 3 describes the data. Section 4 sets out the empirical

framework used. Section 5 discusses the results obtained before the final section concludes the

paper.

2|REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Unions are voluntary organisations with the traditional role of organising workers for collective

voice and bargaining power (Freeman & Medoff, 1984). They also provide insurance against

various risks in the employment relationship such as poor workplace practices (including,

202 HAILE