Les conjoints des salariés passés à 35 heures travaillent-ils davantage ? Une analyse de l'offre de travail familiale sur données françaises

[fre] When collective agreements apply to all unionised and non-unionised employees , what is the rationale behind joining a union ? The paper presents an experiment on a two-stage game . In the first stage , the decision to join a union is modelled as a voluntary contribution to a public good . In the second stage , the unionised employees bargain with the employer over wages that will then be paid to all unionised and non-unionised employees . The experimental evidence reveals that : i ) union membership is higher than predicted by theory , but it declines over time , ii ) the employees ’ bargaining power increases with the size of the union but not as much as predicted . Keywords : union , experimental economics , bargaining [eng] This paper analyses the change in the family labour supply following the introduction of the 35-hour working week using an original sample of more than 10,000 couples drawn from the 2000 Labour Force Survey . Two dimensions of the individual labour supply have been analysed in turn when an individual ’ s spouse starts working a shorter week . These dimensions are the hours worked and the decision to join the labour force . The findings show that spouses outside of the labour force are more likely to join it if their spouse starts working a 35-hour week . This means that the introduction of the 35-hour working week may increase the labour force participation rate in France .