Unionized workers experience significant labor market advantages. Do these advantages transfer to financial markets, including credit and consumer markets? We argue that union coverage facilitates financial advantages in young adulthood by enhancing access to wealth-building credit and avoidance of costly financial coping strategies. We extend a conceptual model of financial advantage based on young adults’ debt holdings to the case of early career union coverage using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997 Cohort. Findings support the importance of labor market institutions in fostering financial advantages and underscore the role of credit and debt for life course inequality processes.
AhlquistJ. S.GrumbachJ.KochanT. (2024). The Rise of the ‘Union Curious’: Support for Unionization among America’s Frontline Workers. Economic Policy Institute Report, Jul. 16, https://epi.org/282870.
2.
AughinbaughA.GardeckiR. M. (2007). Attrition in the national longitudinal survey of youth 1997. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
3.
BlauD.HaskellN.HaurinD. (2019). Are housing characteristics experienced by children associated with their outcomes as young adults?Journal of Housing Economics, 46, 101631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhe.2019.04.003
4.
BleemerZ.BrownM.LeeD.van der KlaauwW. (2014). Debt, Jobs, or Housing? What’s Keeping Millennials at Home?Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports, no. 700.
5.
BradyD.BakerR.FinniganR. (2013). When unionization disappears: State-level unionization and working poverty in the United States.American Sociological Review, 78(5), 872–896. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122413501859
6.
BrandtnerC.LunnA.YoungC. (2019). Spatial mismatch and youth unemployment in U.S. Cities: Public transportation as a labor market institution.Socio-Economic Review, 17, 357–379. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwx010
7.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (2005). National Longitudinal Studies Handbook. U.S. Department of Labor.
8.
ClarkW. (2019). Millennials in the housing market: The transition to ownership in challenging contexts.Housing, Theory, and Society, 36(2), 206–227. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2018.1510852
9.
DeMarcoL.DwyerR.HaynieD. (2021). The accumulation of disadvantage: Criminal justice contact, credit, and debt in the transition to adulthood.Criminology; An Interdisciplinary Journal, 59(3), 545–580. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12286
DwyerR.DeMarcoL. (2024). Unequally indebted: Debt by education, race, and ethnicity and the, accumulation of inequality in emerging adulthood. Emerging Adulthood, OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1177/21676968241241560
12.
EatonC. (2017). Still public: State universities and America’s new student debt coalitions.PS: Political Science & Politics, 50(2), 408–412. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096516002912
FinniganR.HaleJ. (2018). Working 9 to 5? Union membership and work hours and schedules.Social Forces, 96(4), 1541–1568. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sox101
15.
FinniganR.MeagherK. (2019). Past due: Combinations of utility and housing hardship in the United States.Sociological Perspectives, 62(1), 96–119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121418782927
16.
FishbackP. (1986). Did coal miners ‘owe their souls to the company store?’ theory and evidence from the early 1900s.Journal of Economic History, 46(4), 1011–1029. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050700050695
17.
FligsteinN.GoldsteinA. (2015). The emergence of a finance culture in American households, 1989–2007.Socio-Economic Review, 13(3), 575–601. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwu035
Furstenberg JrF. (2010). On a new schedule: Transitions to adulthood and family change.The Future of Children, 20(1), 67–87. https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.0.0038
20.
HagedornJ.ParasC.GreenwichH.HagopianA. (2016). The role of labor unions in creating working conditions that promote public health.American Journal of Public Health, 106(6), 989–995. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303138
21.
Halpern-MeekinS.EdinK.TachL.SykesJ. (2015). It’s Not Like I’m Poor: How Working Families Make Ends Meet in a Post-Welfare World. University of California Press.
22.
HamiltonD.DarityW. (2017). The political economy of education, financial literacy, and the racial wealth gap.Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, 99(1), 59–76. https://doi.org/10.20955/r.2017.59-76
23.
HarrisA. (2016). A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor. Russell Sage Foundation.
24.
HodsonR.DwyerR. E.NeilsonL. A. (2014). Credit card blues: The middle class and the hidden costs of easy credit.The Sociological Quarterly, 55(2), 315–340. https://doi.org/10.1111/tsq.12059
HouleJ.AddoF. (2018). Racial disparities in student debt and the reproduction of the Fragile black middle class.Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 5(4), 562–577. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649218790989
27.
HouleJ.BergerL. (2015). Is student loan debt discouraging homeownership among young adults?Social Service Review, 89(4), 589–621. https://doi.org/10.1086/684587
28.
JacobyS. (2021). Labor in the Age of Finance. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
29.
KarlsonK.HolmA.BreenR. (2012). Comparing regression coefficients between same-sample nested models using logit and probit: A new method.Sociological Methodology, 42(1), 286–313. https://doi.org/10.1177/0081175012444861
30.
KillewaldA. (2013). Return to being black, living in the red: A race gap in wealth that goes beyond social origins.Demography, 50, 1177–1195. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-012-0190-0
KiviatB. (2019). The art of deciding with data: Evidence from how employers translate credit reports into hiring decisions.Socio-Economic Review, 17(2), 283–309. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwx030
33.
KrippnerG. (2001). The elusive market: Embeddedness and the paradigm of economic sociology.Theory and Society, 30(6), 775–810. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013330324198
34.
KrippnerG. (2017). Democracy of credit: Ownership and the politics of credit access in late twentieth-century America.American Journal of Sociology, 123(1), 1–47. https://doi.org/10.1086/692274
35.
KristalT. (2023). What can unions do? An impact estimate for an increase in the U.S. Private-sector unionization rate on Workers’ earnings.Work and Occupations, 50(3), 400–411. https://doi.org/10.1177/07308884231162933
36.
KristalT.CohenY.NavotE. (2020). Workplace compensation practices and the rise in benefit inequality.American Sociological Review, 85(2), 271–297. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122420912505
37.
LaBriolaJ.SchneiderD. (2020). Worker power and class polarization in intra-year work hour volatility.Social Forces, 98(3), 973–999. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soz032
38.
LinK.NeelyM. (2020). Divested: Inequality in Financialized America. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
39.
LinK.Tomaskovic-DeveyD. (2013). Financialization and U.S. Income inequality, 1970–2008. American Journal of Sociology, 118(5), 1284–1329. https://doi.org/10.1086/669499
40.
MarotoM. (2012). The scarring effects of bankruptcy: Cumulative disadvantage across credit and labor markets.Social Forces, 91(1), 99–130. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sos095
41.
MartinE. (2022). Regulating the risk of debt: Exemption laws and economic insecurity across US states, 1986–2012.American Journal of Sociology, 128(3), 728–767. https://doi.org/10.1086/722964
42.
MartinE.DwyerR. (2021). Financial stress, race, and student debt during the great recession.Social Currents, 8(5), 424–445. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294965211026692
43.
McGrathD.KeisterL. (2008). The effect of temporary employment on asset accumulation process.Work and Occupations, 35(2), 196–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888407312275
44.
MilkmanR. (2020). Union decline and labor revival in the 21st century United States.Chicago-Kent Law Review, 95(1), 273–295. https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/vol95/iss1/46
45.
MizeT. (2019). Best practices for estimating, interpreting, and presenting nonlinear interaction effects.Sociological Science, 6, 81–117. https://doi.org/10.15195/v6.a4
46.
MoultonL. (2007). Divining value with relational proxies: How moneylenders balance risk and trust in the quest for good borrowers.Sociological Forum, 22(3), 300–330. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2007.00021.x
47.
NepomnyaschyL.Dwyer EmoryA.EickmeyerK.WallerM.MillerD. (2021). Parental debt and child well-being: What type of debt matters for child outcomes?.RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 7(3), 122–151. https://doi.org/10.7758/rsf.2021.7.3.06
48.
NorrisD. (2023). Embedding racism: City government credit ratings and the institutionalization of race in markets. Social Problems, 70(4), 914–934. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spab066
49.
ParolinZ.VanHeuvelenT. (2023). The cumulative advantage of a unionized career for lifetime earnings.ILR Review, 76(2), 434–460. https://doi.org/10.1177/00197939221129261
50.
PolyaniK. (1944). The Great Transformation. Beacon Press.
51.
ReynoldsM.BradyD. (2012). Bringing you more than the weekend: Union membership and self-rated health in the United States.Social Forces, 90(3), 1023–1049. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sor023
52.
RhodesA. (2022). Student debt and geographic disadvantage: Disparities by rural, suburban, and urban background. Rural Sociology, 87(1), 231–263. https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12403
53.
RosenfeldJ. (2014). What Unions No Longer Do. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
RosenfeldJ.KleykampM. (2012). Organized labor and racial wage inequality in the United States.American Journal of Sociology, 117(5), 1460–1502. https://doi.org/10.1086/663673
56.
RubinD. (1987). Multiple Imputation for Nonresponse in Surveys. John Wiley & Sons.
57.
SchneiderD.ReichA. (2014). Marrying ain’t hard when you’ve got a union card? Labor union membership and first marriage.Social Problems, 61(4), 625–643. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2014.12316
58.
SeamsterL.Charron-ChénierR. (2017). Predatory inclusion and education debt: Rethinking the racial wealth gap.Social Currents, 4(3), 199–207. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329496516686620
59.
TapiaM.TurnerL. (2018). Renewed activism for the labor movement: The urgency of young worker engagement.Work and Occupations, 45(4), 391–419. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888418785657
60.
ThurstonC. (2018). At the Boundaries of Homeownership: Credit, Discrimination, and the American State. Cambridge University Press.
TrumbullG. (2012). Credit access and social welfare: The rise of consumer lending in the United States and France.Politics & Society, 40(1), 9–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329211434688
63.
VallasS.JohnstonH. (2023). Labor unbound? Assessing the current surge in labor activism.Work and Occupations, 50(3), 376–384. https://doi.org/10.1177/07308884231162929
64.
VanHeuvelenT. (2018). Moral economies or hidden talents? A longitudinal analysis of union decline and wage inequality, 1973–2015.Social Forces, 97(2), 495–530. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soy045
WellerC. (2008). Credit Access, the Costs of Credit, and Credit Market Discrimination. SSRN Scholarly Paper. ID 1161991. Rochester, Social Science Research Network.
68.
WellerC.MadlandD. (2022). Unions, race, ethnicity, and wealth: Is there a union wealth premium for people of color?Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, 5(1), 25–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41996-020-00078-7
69.
WesternB.RosenfeldJ. (2011). Unions, norms, and the rise in U.S. Wage inequality.American Sociological Review, 76(4), 513–537. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122411414817
WherryF.SeefeldtK.AlvarezA. (2019). Credit Where It’s Due: Rethinking Financial Citizenship. Russell Sage Foundation.
72.
WiedemannA. (2022). How credit markets substitute for welfare states and influence social policy preferences: Evidence from the US states.British Journal of Political Science, 52(2), 829–849. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123420000708
73.
WilmersN. (2017). Does consumer demand reproduce inequality? High-income consumers, vertical differentiation, and the wage structure.American Journal of Sociology, 123(1), 178–231. https://doi.org/10.1086/692063
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
