IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/luekhi/0144.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

To be or not to be? Risk attitudes and gender differences in union membership

Author

Listed:
  • Karlsson, Tobias

    (Department of Economic History, Lund University)

  • Stanfors, Maria

    (Department of Economic History, Lund University)

Abstract

Attracting membership while stifling freeriding and heterogeneous preferences among potential members is critical for trade union success. Women are generally seen as less inclined to join trade unions, particularly at the onset of the labor movement. We highlight a previously neglected explanation for this: the importance of risk and gender differences in assessment hereof. We study matched employer-employee data from two industries around the year 1900 where union membership was associated with different levels of risk: the Swedish cigar and printing industries. We find that the gender gap in membership was larger in the high-risk environment (cigar) and smaller in the low-risk environment (printing). Women were not hard to organize but avoided risks and uncertain returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Karlsson, Tobias & Stanfors, Maria, 2016. "To be or not to be? Risk attitudes and gender differences in union membership," Lund Papers in Economic History 144, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0144
    Note: A revised version of this paper was published in Feminist Economics Vol. 24, 2018, Issue 1, with the title "Risk Preferences and Gender Differences in Union Membership in Late Nineteenth-Century Swedish Manufacturing".
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=8837866&fileOId=8837867
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grazier, S. & Sloane, P.J., 2008. "Accident risk, gender, family status and occupational choice in the UK," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 938-957, October.
    2. Laszlo Goerke & Markus Pannenberg, 2012. "Risk Aversion and Trade‐Union Membership," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(2), pages 275-295, June.
    3. Burnette,Joyce, 2008. "Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521880633, October.
    4. Booth, Alison L., 2009. "Gender and competition," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 599-606, December.
    5. Goerke, Laszlo & Pannenberg, Markus, 2011. "Trade union membership and dismissals," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 810-821.
    6. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    7. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 2008. "Differences in the Economic Decisions of Men and Women: Experimental Evidence," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 57, pages 509-519, Elsevier.
    8. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2011. "Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting: Productivity, Preferences, and Gender," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 556-590, April.
    9. Maria Stanfors & Tim Leunig & Björn Eriksson & Tobias Karlsson, 2014. "Gender, productivity, and the nature of work and pay: evidence from the late nineteenth-century tobacco industry," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(1), pages 48-65, February.
    10. Bonin, Holger & Dohmen, Thomas & Falk, Armin & Huffman, David & Sunde, Uwe, 2007. "Cross-sectional earnings risk and occupational sorting: The role of risk attitudes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 926-937, December.
    11. Barry Eichengreen, 1987. "The Impact of Late Nineteenth-Century Unions on Labor Earnings and Hours: Iowa in 1894," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 40(4), pages 501-515, July.
    12. Joyce Burnette, 2015. "The paradox of progress: the emergence of wage discrimination in US manufacturing," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 19(2), pages 128-148.
    13. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    14. Monroe Berkowitz, 1954. "The Economics of Trade Union Organization and Administration," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 7(4), pages 575-592, July.
    15. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    16. Thomas DeLeire & Helen Levy, 2004. "Worker Sorting and the Risk of Death on the Job," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(4), pages 925-954, October.
    17. Alison L. Booth, 1985. "The Free Rider Problem and a Social Custom Model of Trade Union Membership," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(1), pages 253-261.
    18. Gottlieb, Daniel, 2007. "Asymmetric information in late 19th century cooperative insurance societies," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 270-292, April.
    19. Prus, Mark J, 1990. "Mechanisation and the Gender-Based Division of Labour in the U.S. Cigar Industry," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 14(1), pages 63-79, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laszlo Goerke & Markus Pannenberg, 2012. "Risk Aversion and Trade‐Union Membership," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(2), pages 275-295, June.
    2. Halko, Marja-Liisa & Kaustia, Markku & Alanko, Elias, 2012. "The gender effect in risky asset holdings," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 66-81.
    3. Boschini, Anne & Dreber, Anna & von Essen, Emma & Muren, Astri & Ranehill, Eva, 2019. "Gender, risk preferences and willingness to compete in a random sample of the Swedish population✰," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    4. Necker, Sarah & Voskort, Andrea, 2014. "Intergenerational transmission of risk attitudes – A revealed preference approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 66-89.
    5. SeEun Jung, 2017. "The gender wage gap and sample selection via risk attitudes," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(2), pages 318-335, May.
    6. Jung, SeEun & Choe, Chung & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2018. "Gender wage gaps and risky vs. secure employment: An experimental analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 112-121.
    7. Michael Baker & Kirsten Cornelson, 2018. "Gender-Based Occupational Segregation and Sex Differences in Sensory, Motor, and Spatial Aptitudes," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(5), pages 1749-1775, October.
    8. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    9. Dohmen, Thomas & Lehmann, Hartmut & Pignatti, Norberto, 2016. "Time-varying individual risk attitudes over the Great Recession: A comparison of Germany and Ukraine," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 182-200.
    10. Youssouf Merouani & Faustine Perrin, 2022. "Gender and the long-run development process. A survey of the literature [Rethinking age heaping: A cautionary tale from nineteenth-century Italy]," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 26(4), pages 612-641.
    11. Becerra, Oscar & Guerra, José-Alberto, 2023. "Personal safety first: Do workers value safer jobs?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 996-1016.
    12. Cortes, Patricia & Pan, Jessica, 2017. "Occupation and Gender," IZA Discussion Papers 10672, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Becchetti, Leonardo & Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Ottone, Stefania & Solferino, Nazaria, 2013. "Allocation criteria under task performance: The gendered preference for protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 96-111.
    14. Bonin, Holger & Dohmen, Thomas & Falk, Armin & Huffman, David & Sunde, Uwe, 2007. "Cross-sectional earnings risk and occupational sorting: The role of risk attitudes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 926-937, December.
    15. Ludwig, Sandra & Fellner-Röhling, Gerlinde & Thoma, Carmen, 2017. "Do women have more shame than men? An experiment on self-assessment and the shame of overestimating oneself," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 31-46.
    16. Breitkopf, Laura & Chowdhury, Shyamal K. & Priyam, Shambhavi & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Sutter, Matthias, 2020. "Do economic preferences of children predict behavior?," DICE Discussion Papers 342, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    17. Paolo Crosetto & Antonio Filippin & Janna Heider, 2015. "A Study of Outcome Reporting Bias Using Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 61(1), pages 239-262.
    18. Uwe Jirjahn, 2015. "Research on Trade Unions and Collective Bargaining in Germany: The Contribution of Labor Economics," Research Papers in Economics 2015-10, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    19. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1645-1692.
    20. Leuermann, Andrea & Roth, Benjamin, 2012. "Does good advice come cheap? - On the assessment of risk preferences in the lab and the field," Working Papers 0534, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    trade unions; risk aversion; gender; 19th Century; 20th Century; Sweden;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N63 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:hhs:luekhi:0144. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Tobias Karlsson or Benny Carlsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dhlunse.html .

    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.