Determinants of Trade Union Membership in Australia

This paper uses Australian cross‐sectional data to examine the determinants of individual union membership. It analyses the separate effect of three groups of variables on the probability of unionisation: personal attributes, occupational and industry‐related characteristics, and social and attitudinal factors. While the personal attributes of an employee were found to have little effect on union status, the other two groups of variables added significantly to the explained variance in union membership. An important finding of the study was that certain attitudes, ideologies and social values were clearly associated with variations in union status.