During the past two decades, union density has declined in the United States and employer provision of health benefits has undergone substantial changes in extent and form. Using individual data spanning the years 1983-1997, combined with establishment data for 1993, we update and extend previous analyses of private-sector union effects on employer-provided health benefits. We find that the union effect on health insurance coverage rates has fallen somewhat but remains large, due to an increase over time in the union effect on employee 'take-up' of offered insurance, and that declining unionization explains 20-35 percent of the decline in employee health coverage. The increasing union take-up effect is linked to union effects on employees' direct costs for health insurance and the availability of retiree coverage.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
8238.
Length: Date of creation: Apr 2001 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8238
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Find related papers by JEL classification: I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Gerald S. Goldstein & Mark V. Pauly, 1976.
"Group Health Insurance as a Local Public Good,"
NBER Chapters,
in: The Role of Health Insurance in the Health Services Sector, pages 73-114
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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