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Abstract
Jon Agnone
My dissertation research extends my interest in the effects of social movements and related institutions to how involvement in unions affects racial and ethnic differences in wealth. Using panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), I find that even though union representation has decreased in the U.S. since the mid-1950s, unions promote wealth equality by increasing access to the accumulation of pension wealth and home ownership due to the increased wage and non-wage packages of union employees. Further, the individual wealth holdings of African Americans benefit more under union employment given historical trends in union membership. Representing the nexus of several areas of inquiry, this project offers theoretical and empirical contributions of interest to scholars of labor unions, wealth and poverty, and race and inequality. |
