ABSTRACT
Analysis of unions and wage inequality in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada is motivated by several factors. One is to better understand trends in income inequality. Several studies have concluded that falling unionization contributed to the steep increase in wage inequality in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 1980s. It is possible to compare the structure of wages for workers whose wages are set by union contracts, and those whose wages are not, and potentially infer the effect of unions on overall wage inequality. The wage densities for Canadian men and women are qualitatively similar to those in the United States. In particular, it is clear that male wages are more narrowly distributed in the union sector than the nonunion sector. The impact of unions on the structure of wages has recently attracted renewed interest as analysts have struggled to explain the rise in earnings inequality in several industrialized countries.
