The Effect of Unionism on Workers' Valuation of Future Pension Benefits

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of unionism on the pension benefits workers expect to receive on retirement. The valuation of future benefits by workers, rather than actual employer expenditures on pensions, is examined because expected benefits should be the more important variable in explaining the labor market behavior of individual workers. Analysis of data for middle-aged men, taken from the National Longitudinal Surveys, suggests that union workers are more knowledgeable than nonunion workers about their retirement benefits, and also the average union worker expects to receive a pension higher than that expected by the average nonunion worker. More specifically, among firms providing pensions, the expected benefits are actually lower in union firms than in nonunion firms, but that difference is outweighed by the fact that nonunion firms are much more likely than union firms to have no pension plan at all.