Immigrants and Trade Union Membership: Does Integration into Society and Workplace Play a Moderating Role? A new GLO Discussion Paper by GLO Affiliate Fenet Jima Bedaso and GLO Fellows Uwe Jirjahn & Laszlo Goerke.

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A new GLO Discussion Paper shows for Germany that the immigrant-native gap in union membership depends on immigrants’ integration into the workplace and society.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 1169, 2022

Immigrants and Trade Union Membership: Does Integration into Society and Workplace Play a Moderating Role? – Download PDF
by Bedaso, Fenet Jima & Jirjahn, Uwe & Goerke, Laszlo

GLO Affiliate Fenet Jima Bedaso and GLO Fellows Uwe Jirjahn & Laszlo Goerke

Uwe Jirjahn

Author Abstract: We hypothesize that incomplete integration into the workplace and society implies that immigrants are less likely to be union members than natives. Incomplete integration makes the usual mechanism for overcoming the collective action problem less effective. Using data from the Socio-Economic Panel, our empirical analysis confirms a unionization gap for first-generation immigrants in Germany. Importantly, the analysis shows that the immigrant-native gap in union membership indeed depends on immigrants’ integration into the workplace and society. The gap is smaller for immigrants working in firms with a works council and having social contacts with Germans. Our analysis also confirms that the gap is decreasing in the years since arrival in Germany.

PUBLISHED
Vol. 35, Issue 4, October 2022: Journal of Population Economics (JOPE): 15 articles https://link.springer.com/journal/148/volumes-and-issues/35-4
CiteScore of JOPE moves up from 3.9 (2020) to 6.5 (2021). LINK
Similar, its Impact Factor is now 4.7 (2021) after 2.8 (2020)! LINK

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