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Labor Unions and Deaths of Despair: Evidence from Right-to-Work Laws

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  • Petach, Luke

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between union membership and deaths of despair. Using state-level variation in the timing of the adoption of right-to-work (RTW) laws as a natural experiment, I show that right-to-work laws are associated with a decline in union membership and an increase in deaths of despair. Two-way fixed-effects (TWFE) differencein- differences (DiD) estimates suggest that the adoption of a right-to-work law is associated with an approximately 2.6 percentage point reduction in union membership at the state-level and an increase in deaths of despair mortality between 12 and 13 additional persons per 100,000, suggesting that each percentage point decline in union membership is associated with approximately five additional deaths from suicide, drug overdose, or alcoholic liver disease per 100,000 persons. I support the TWFE results with state-level estimates from the Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) estimator and the Borusyak et al. (2024) estimator, which are robust to concerns about treatment effect heterogeneity and variation in treatment timing. Estimates from a county-level specification using the Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) estimator similarly suggest that RTW laws increase deaths of despair mortality by 6 to 11 additional persons per 100,000.

Suggested Citation

  • Petach, Luke, 2026. "Labor Unions and Deaths of Despair: Evidence from Right-to-Work Laws," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1729, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1729
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    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/338967/1/GLO-DP-1729.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Suresh Naidu, 2022. "Is There Any Future for a US Labor Movement?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 3-28, Fall.
    2. Henry S Farber & Daniel Herbst & Ilyana Kuziemko & Suresh Naidu, 2021. "Unions and Inequality over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from Survey Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1325-1385.
    3. Angus Deaton, 2022. "The great divide: education, despair, and death," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 57(4), pages 161-168, October.
    4. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality

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