The Changing Skill Content of Private-Sector Union Coverage

Abstract

Concurrent with the decline in private-sector unionization over the past half century, a shift has occurred in the type of work covered by unions. The authors take a skill-based approach to study this shift. For both men and women, private-sector unionized jobs have changed to require more non-routine, cognitive skills, and for women, less routine, manual skills. Union/non-union skill differences have grown, with unionized jobs requiring relatively more non-routine, cognitive skill and relatively more routine, manual and routine, cognitive skills. The authors decompose these changes into 1) changes in skills within an occupation, 2) changes in worker concentration across existing occupations, and 3) changes to the occupational mix from entry and exit. Most of the changes they document are driven by the second two forces. Finally, the article discusses how this evidence can be reconciled with a model of skill-biased technological change that directly accounts for the institutional framework surrounding collective bargaining.