Trade Unions and Life Satisfaction in Germany

Björn Becker, Laszlo Goerke and Yue Huang

British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2025, vol. 63, issue 3, 462-477

Abstract: The effects of trade union membership on wages and job satisfaction have been studied extensively. Arguably, life satisfaction serves as a more comprehensive measure of the benefits of union membership and warrants closer examination. Using all relevant waves from the German Socio‐Economic Panel between 1985 and 2019, we find a negative correlation between trade union membership and life satisfaction in OLS and FE specifications. The association may arise because union members are more concerned about their job and the economic situation and less satisfied with their work. Social capital and wages also perform as channels between membership and life satisfaction. The negative correlation is more pronounced in settings in which trade unions are relatively weak.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12861

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:63:y:2025:i:3:p:462-477

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0007-1080

Access Statistics for this article

British Journal of Industrial Relations is currently edited by Edmund Heery

More articles in British Journal of Industrial Relations from London School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().