Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This study estimates the size of the union wage premium in Britain and the United States over the last two decades. The project compared trends in the wage premium between the US and Britain to provide insights into the way unions operate in a period of union decline. For Britain, the analysis was based on data from the British Social Attitudes Surveys (BSA) 1983-2002, the Labour Force Surveys for 1989-2000 (LFS) and the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998 (WERS98), which are all held at the UK Data Archive (see web page links below). For the US, the Current Population Surveys 1973-2002 (not held at UKDA) were used. Users should note that this deposit includes data from BSA and WERS98 only, not LFS, and covers Britain only, for the years 1983-2001. No separate documentation has been deposited for this study, but users may find the original documentation for BSA and WERS useful. Links to the documentation for these studies may be found via the UKDA's major studies web pages: British Social Attitudes Workplace Employee Relations For further information on the project, including data sources, compilation and variables, the depositor suggests that users consult the ESRC Society Today web site, using the grant number R000223958.

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The files include the following information: membwag3: linked employer-employee data from WERS98 where the unit is the employee; tsearn: repeat cross-section data from BSA 1983-2002; wag8998: 1989 and 1998 analysis of the impact of the closed shop and perceptions of union power on the wage premium.

Please see documentation for BSA and WERS studies for details of original sampling

Compilation or synthesis of existing material