A Distributional Analysis of Changes in Earnings Inequality among Unionized and Nonunionized Male Workers in the United States: 1982-1990

In view of the dramatic decline of unionism in the US during the late 1970s and 1980s, one issue concerns whether changes in earnings inequity have differed systematically among unionized and nonunionized workers. Little systematic distributional analysis of changes in earnings by union status has developed, yet Freeman (1991) found that dispersion grew among both union and nonunion groups. This issue is addressed by empirically examining changes in the structure of the earnings distribution among unionized and nonunionized male workers, respectively, in the US, over the 1982 to 1990 period. The analysis employs standard distributional measures but extends previous studies by applying recently developed techniques of statistical inference to test for change.