Unionization among Racial and Ethnic Minorities

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Abstract
Using data on 23–30-year-olds from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the author presents the first comparative economic analysis of union coverage among black, Hispanic, Asian, and white workers in the United States. Coverage is found to be highest in this age group for blacks, followed by Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites, and Asians. Contrary to common belief, immigrants average higher rates of unionization than natives. Once the regression analysis takes into account the larger proportions of urban, immigrant, and less-educated workers in the Hispanic sample, the differences in demand for unionization among comparable whites, Asians, and Hispanics fall to insignificance. Blacks tend to exhibit a markedly stronger demand for representation than comparable workers from other groups.