IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijmpps/ijm-03-2020-0084.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do local union strategies explain the (unexpected) union pay premium in China?

Author

Listed:
  • Yao Yao
  • Morley Gunderson

Abstract

Purpose - The authors investigate the extent to which differences in provincial union legislation have impacts on the union earnings premium. Design/methodology/approach - Content analysis of provincial union regulations of 25 provinces is conducted to create two indices: one reflecting the degree of stringency of the local requirement that unions be established in a timely fashion and the other reflecting requirements for employers to negotiate wages with the union. The authors use individual level data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) of 2010 to estimate the union earnings premium. Findings - The authors find that unionised workers in China receive an earnings premium ranging from 6.4 to 9.6%, which is in range of other studies (but not all) for China that tend to find a (perhaps surprising) union wage premium in spite of the fact that unions tend to be “company unions” designed to foster stability and growth and to serve as a transmission belt for the wishes of the Party rather than bargaining for the benefit of their members. The authors also find that provincial requirements to establish unions in a timely fashion enhance the impact of unions on the earnings of their members, but provincial requirements to negotiate wages dampen the effect of unions on the earnings of their members. Reasons for these results are discussed. Originality/value - Despite this lack of independence of the Chinese unions, research continuously finds that Chinese unions have effects that are surprisingly similar to those of unions in Western countries. This paper drills deeper into the underlying mechanisms to see if local union strategies, exemplified by provincial union legislation, can explain the unexpected union effects on compensation. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to do so. Moreover, the authors use individual-level data in contrast to most studies on China that use firm or provincial level aggregate data.

Suggested Citation

  • Yao Yao & Morley Gunderson, 2021. "Do local union strategies explain the (unexpected) union pay premium in China?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(6), pages 1124-1143, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-03-2020-0084
    DOI: 10.1108/IJM-03-2020-0084
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJM-03-2020-0084/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJM-03-2020-0084/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/IJM-03-2020-0084?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Morley K. Gunderson & Byron Y. Lee & Hui Wang, 2024. "Worker Congresses in China: Do they matter?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 43-58, January.
    2. Brändle, Tobias, 2024. "Unions and Collective Bargaining: The Influence on Wages, Employment and Firm Survival," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1457, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-03-2020-0084. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.