Research Discussion Paper – RDP 2019-02 Is Declining Union Membership Contributing to Low Wages Growth?

Contents

• Introduction
• What Can Previous Research Tell Us?
• Has There Been a Decline in Union Involvement in Wage Setting?
• Is There a ‘Union Wage Growth Premium’ and Has This Shrunk over Time?
• Are There Spillover Effects onto Wage Outcomes in Other Enterprise Agreements?
• Conclusion: What Has Been the Overall Effect on Wages Growth?
• Appendix A: Definitional Changes under the Fair Work Act 2009
• Appendix B: Descriptive Statistics for Baseline Sample
• Appendix C: Descriptive Statistics for Difference-in-differences Sample
• References
• Copyright and Disclaimer Notice

We would like to thank Natasha Cassidy, Gianni La Cava, Tom Rosewall, Peter Siminski, John Simon, and seminar participants at the Reserve Bank of Australia, the University of Sydney and the Asian and Australasian Society of Labour Economics 2018 Conference for their helpful comments. The views expressed in this paper are ours and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Any errors are our own.