Returns to Seniority in Union and Nonunion Jobs: A New Look at the Evidence

Katharine Abraham () and Henry S. Farber

No 2368, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: One of the most prominent features of U.S. unionism is the key role played by seniority. However, in cross-sectional data, the positive association between seniority and earnings is typically much stronger for nonunion workers than for union workers. This finding has puzzled previous researchers, since it seems inconsistent with the generalization that seniority is more important in the union sector than in the nonunion sector. We show that standard estimates of the return to seniority are likely to be biased upward and argue that the bias is likely to be larger in the nonunion sector than in the union sector. Corrected estimates imply that the return to seniority is, in fact, larger in the union sector than in the nonunion sector.

Date: Written 1989-04
Note: LS
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Published as Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 3-19, (October 1988).

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2368.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

Related works:
Journal Article: Returns to seniority in union and nonunion jobs: A new look at the evidence (1988)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2368
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Address: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().