Unionization and absenteeism

Until recently any labour economist doing empirical work on unionization was concerned almost exclusively with the effect of unionization on wages. But beginning with Freeman's 1976 analysis of the rich institutional structure of unions, economists have been considering the role of unions in, for example, increasing productivity, lowering quit rates, enhancing fringe benefits, reducing income inequality, improving working conditions, and affecting a variety of other attributes at the workplace.Footnote 1 To date, however, no study has directly addressed a question that appears ripe for empirical analysis: Does unionization affect absenteeism? This paper presents results from a study designed to answer that question. The first section presents a simple model of absenteeism. The second section discusses the five mechanisms through which unionization influences absenteeism. The third section describes the data and variable selection. Results from logit regressions are presented in the fourth section and the paper closes with a summary of the arguments and evidence.