IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedfwp/2000-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Union effects on health insurance provision and coverage in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas C. Buchmueller
  • John DiNardo
  • Robert G. Valletta

Abstract

Since Freeman and Medoff's (1984) comprehensive review of what unions do, union density in the U.S. has fallen substantially. During the same period, employer provision of health insurance has undergone substantial changes in extent and form. Using individual data from various supplements to the Current Population Survey and establishment data from the 1993 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation survey, we investigate the effects of unionization on employer provision of health benefits. We find that in addition to increasing coverage by employer-provided health benefits, unions reduce employee cost sharing and substantially increase the probability that employer-provided health plans extend to retirees. The union effects on coverage for current employees and for retirees have risen over time, and our estimates suggest that declining unionization explains about 17-20 percent of the decrease in employer-provided health insurance between 1983 and 1997.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas C. Buchmueller & John DiNardo & Robert G. Valletta, 2000. "Union effects on health insurance provision and coverage in the United States," Working Paper Series 2000-04, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2000-04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/econrsrch/workingp/2000/wp00-04.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 1997. "Institutional Changes and Rising Wage Inequality: Is There a Linkage?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 75-96, Spring.
    2. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    3. Neumark, David & Polsky, Daniel & Hansen, Daniel, 1999. "Has Job Stability Declined Yet? New Evidence for the 1990s," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 29-64, October.
    4. Shore-Sheppard, Lara & Buchmueller, Thomas C. & Jensen, Gail A., 2000. "Medicaid and crowding out of private insurance: a re-examination using firm level data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 61-91, January.
    5. John Dinardo & Thomas Lemieux, 1997. "Diverging Male Wage Inequality in the United States and Ganada, 1981–1988: Do Institutions Explain the Difference?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 50(4), pages 629-651, July.
    6. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    7. Richard B. Freeman, 1981. "The Effect of Unionism on Fringe Benefits," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 34(4), pages 489-509, July.
    8. Shulamit Kahn, 1990. "What Occupational Safety Tells Us about Political Power in Union Firms," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(3), pages 481-496, Autumn.
    9. Farber, Henry S. & Levy, Helen, 2000. "Recent trends in employer-sponsored health insurance coverage: are bad jobs getting worse?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 93-119, January.
    10. Valletta, Robert G, 1999. "Declining Job Security," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 170-197, October.
    11. Even, William E. & Macpherson, David A., 1991. "The impact of unionism on fringe benefit coverage," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 87-91, May.
    12. Richard N. Rosett, 1976. "The Role of Health Insurance in the Health Services Sector," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number rose76-1, March.
    13. Janet Currie & Aaron S. Yelowitz, 1999. "Health Insurance and Less Skilled Workers," JCPR Working Papers 63, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    14. Bramley, Donald G. & Wunnava, Phanindra V. & Robinson, Michael D., 1989. "A note on union-non-union benefit differentials and size of establishment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 85-88.
    15. Hwang, Hae-shin & Reed, W Robert & Hubbard, Carlton, 1992. "Compensating Wage Differentials and Unobserved Productivity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 835-858, August.
    16. 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.
    17. Macpherson, David A., 1992. "Employer-provided retiree health insurance: Who is covered?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 95-99, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kosteas, Vasilios D. & Renna, Francesco, 2014. "Plan choice, health insurance cost and premium sharing," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 179-188.
    2. Gustavo Canavire-Bacarreza & Luis C. Carvajal-Osorio, 2020. "Two Stories of Wage Dynamics in Latin America: Different Policies, Different Outcomes," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 128-168, June.
    3. Antonczyk, Dirk & Fitzenberger, Bernd & Sommerfeld, Katrin, 2010. "Rising wage inequality, the decline of collective bargaining, and the gender wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 835-847, October.
    4. Kaltenberg, Mary & Foster-McGregor, Neil, 2020. "The impact of automation on inequality across Europe," MERIT Working Papers 2020-009, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    5. Fligstein, Neil & Shin, Taek-Jin, 2003. "The shareholder value society: A review of the changes in working conditions and inequality in the U.S., 1976-2000," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt0z85d717, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    6. David Card & Thomas Lemieux & W. Craig Riddell, 2020. "Unions and wage inequality: The roles of gender, skill and public sector employment," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 140-173, February.
    7. repec:pri:cepsud:172farber is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Andreas Behr, Ulrich Pötter, "undated". "Analysing wage differences between the USA and Germany using proportional hazards models," Working Papers 201158, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    9. Andreas Behr & Ulrich Pötter, 2009. "Analysing Wage Differences between the USA and Germany Using Proportional Hazards Models," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 23(2), pages 319-347, June.
    10. Thomas C. Buchmueller & John DiNardo & Robert Valletta, 2004. "A Submerging Labor Market Institution?Unions and the Nonwage Aspects of Work," NBER Chapters, in: Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century, pages 231-263, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Anna Lukiyanova, 2015. "Earnings inequality and informal employment in Russia," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 23(2), pages 469-516, April.
    12. Matthew Knepper, 2020. "From the Fringe to the Fore: Labor Unions and Employee Compensation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 98-112, March.
    13. Broecke, Stijn & Quintini, Glenda & Vandeweyer, Marieke, 2017. "Explaining international differences in wage inequality: Skills matter," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 112-124.
    14. Panos, Georgios A. & Theodossiou, Ioannis, 2010. "Unionism and Peer-Referencing," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-122, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    15. Anna Lukiyanova, 2013. "Earnings inequality and informal Employment in Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 37/EC/2013, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    16. Rosalia Castellano & Gaetano Musella & Gennaro Punzo, 2019. "Exploring changes in the employment structure and wage inequality in Western Europe using the unconditional quantile regression," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 249-304, May.
    17. Henry S. Farber, 2008. "Employment Insecurity: The Decline in Worker-Firm Attachment in the United States," Working Papers 1056, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    18. Monheit, Alan C. & Vistnes, Jessica Primoff, 2005. "The demand for dependent health insurance: How important is the cost of family coverage?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 1108-1131, November.
    19. Michael J. Handel, 2007. "Computers and the Wage Structure," Research in Labor Economics, in: Aspects of Worker Well-Being, pages 157-198, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    20. Anne Beeson Royalty, 2000. "Do Minimum Wage Increases Lower the Probability that Low-Skilled Workers Will Receive Fringe Benefits?," JCPR Working Papers 172, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    21. Henry S. Farber, 2008. "Employment Insecurity: The Decline in Worker-Firm Attachment in the United States," Working Papers 1068, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor unions; Insurance; Health;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2000-04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.