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Trade union membership and paid vacation in Germany

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  • Laszlo Goerke
  • Sabrina Jeworrek
  • Markus Pannenberg

Abstract

In Germany, dependent employees take almost 30 days of paid vacation annually. We enquire whether an individual’s trade union membership affects the duration of vacation. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the period 1985 to 2010 and employing pooled OLS-estimators, we find that being a union member goes along with almost one additional day of vacation per year. Estimations exploiting the panel structure of our data suggest that a smaller part of this vacation differential can be due to the union membership status, while self-selection effects play a more important role. Copyright Goerke et al. 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Laszlo Goerke & Sabrina Jeworrek & Markus Pannenberg, 2015. "Trade union membership and paid vacation in Germany," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-26, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:izalbr:v:4:y:2015:i:1:p:1-26:10.1186/s40172-015-0033-5
    DOI: 10.1186/s40172-015-0033-5
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    Cited by:

    1. Goerke, Laszlo & Huang, Yue, 2022. "Job satisfaction and trade union membership in Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Thomas Hofmarcher, 2021. "The effect of paid vacation on health: evidence from Sweden," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 929-967, July.
    3. Ali Fakih, 2018. "What Determines Vacation Leave? The Role Of Gender," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 1-19, January.
    4. Adrian Chadi & Laszlo Goerke, 2023. "Seeking shelter in times of crisis? unemployment, perceived job insecurity and trade union membership," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(359), pages 1041-1088, July.
    5. Laszlo Goerke & Sabrina Jeworrek, 2021. "Paid vacation use: The role of works councils," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 42(3), pages 473-503, August.
    6. Laszlo Goerke, 2020. "Unions and Workers' Well-being," IAAEU Discussion Papers 202008, Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU).

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