The Ecology of Organizational Mortality: American Labor Unions, 1836-1985

This research analyzes the disbanding rates of the full population of American national labor unions for the period 1836-1985. It tests the hypothesis, drawn from population-ecology theory, that disbanding rates are nonmonotonic functions of the number of unions in the population. The evidence supports this hypothesis: as density rises from low to high, disbanding rates first fall but eventually rise. This pattern of effects holds when age, type of starting event, and features of the national economic, political, and social enironments are controlled.