The Effects of Workplace Union on the Gender Wage Gap

The Roudy Law in 1983 tried to promote wage equality between men and women by reinforcing union power in this field. A reexamination of CMOSS data from 1992 allows measuring what was its impact after nearly ten years of implementation. The methodology consists in computing how the presence of union representatives at the workplace affects wage gaps between men and women of similar characteristics. Taking into account selection bias and unobserved individual and establishment heterogeneity, our results show a positive impact of unions on wages for both men and women working full time in the industrial sector. This union premium is all the more important as the worker earns a low wage. Nevertheless, we find no significant impact of unions on the unexplained gender wage gap: unions tend to increase both mens and womens wages in similar proportions.