Labor Unions and Deaths of Despair: Evidence from Right-to-Work Laws

Luke Petach

No 1729, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between union membership and deaths of despair. Using state-level variation in the timing of the adoption of right-to-work (RTW) laws as a natural experiment, I show that right-to-work laws are associated with a decline in union membership and an increase in deaths of despair. Two-way fixed-effects (TWFE) differencein- differences (DiD) estimates suggest that the adoption of a right-to-work law is associated with an approximately 2.6 percentage point reduction in union membership at the state-level and an increase in deaths of despair mortality between 12 and 13 additional persons per 100,000, suggesting that each percentage point decline in union membership is associated with approximately five additional deaths from suicide, drug overdose, or alcoholic liver disease per 100,000 persons. I support the TWFE results with state-level estimates from the Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) estimator and the Borusyak et al. (2024) estimator, which are robust to concerns about treatment effect heterogeneity and variation in treatment timing. Estimates from a county-level specification using the Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) estimator similarly suggest that RTW laws increase deaths of despair mortality by 6 to 11 additional persons per 100,000.

Keywords: Labor Unions; Right-to-Work Laws; Deaths of Despair; Health Economics; Labor Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I14 J51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:1729

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