Unions and Upward Mobility for Women Workers

John Schmitt
December 2008

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Executive Summary

In 2007, women made up 45 percent of union members. If the share of women in unions continues
to grow at the same rate as it has over the last 25 years, women will be the majority of the unionized
workforce by 2020.

This paper uses the most recent data available to examine the impact of unionization on the pay and
benefits of women in the paid workforce. The data suggest that even after controlling for systematic
differences between union and non-union workers, union representation substantially improves the
pay and benefits that women receive.

On average, unionization raised women’s wages by 11.2 percent – about $2.00 per hour – compared
to non-union women with similar characteristics. Among women workers, those in unions were
about 19 percentage points more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and about 25
percentage points more likely to have an employer-provided pension.

For the average woman, joining a union has a much larger effect on her probability of having health
insurance (an 18.8 percentage-point increase) than finishing a four-year college degree would (an 8.4
percentage-point increase, compared to a woman with similar characteristics who has only a high
school diploma). Similarly, unionization raises the probability of a woman having a pension by 24.7
percentage points, compared to only a 13.1 percent increase for completing a four-year college
degree (relative to a high school degree).

For the average woman, a four-year college degree boosts wages by 52.6 percent, relative to a
woman with similar characteristics who has only a high school degree. The comparably estimated
union wage premium is 11.2 percent – over 20 percent of the full four-year college effect.