Factors of convergence and divergence in union membership

This paper considers to what extent union decline in Britain has been characterised by convergence or divergence in union membership rates for people with different personal and job characteristics. It compares data on individual union membership in 1975, from a period when union membership was high and growing, to data in 2001 data when it is low and has been falling for over twenty years. Some factors of both convergence and divergence are identified. The clearest individual characteristic of convergence is gender. In 1975 there was a big male-female gap in union membership, whilst by 2001 one cannot reject the hypothesis that union membership rates were equal for men and women. The clearest case of divergence is age where the 1975-2001 period sees a widening of the age gap in union membership status. Other factors of convergence are the full- time/part-time status of jobs, ethnicity and workplace size. Other factors of divergence are industry and educational qualifications. Some other factors (like region) are neutral in that their relationship with union membership remains stable through time. Identification of these factors of convergence and divergence should be useful to many parties, including industrial relations scholars and union organisers. Finally, the fact that the magnitude of the relationships between union membership and a number of its determinants have shifted through time illustrates that one should be careful if one wishes to talk about empirical regularities in who is more or less likely to become a trade union member

Childhood disadvantage and intergenerational transmissions of economic status

Report background: This report summarises presentations and discussion at a workshop on ‘Persistent Poverty and Lifetime Inequality’ organised by HM Treasury and chaired by John Hills, Director of the ESRC Resarch Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics. It took place on 17 and 18 November 1998. The Treasury decided to hold this workshop to encourage debate and extend understanding of the causes of persistent poverty and inequality of opportunity, drawing on the large amount of new research using panel datasets. These new datasets make it possible to move from a static analysis of poverty and inequality to a dynamic focus. Looking at the dynamics of poverty and inequality of opportunity enables us to pinpoint the processes and events which lead people to be at greater risk of low income and poorer life chances. These data provide a much firmer underpinning for policies which aim to tackle these problems at source

Union Decline in Britain

In this paper I consider the rapid decline in the unionization rate that has occurred in Britain since the late 1970s. An establishment based analysis reports that the overwhelming factor in explaining falling unionization was a failure to organise the new sorts of establishments that were set up in the last twenty years or so. Patterns showing low rates of union recognition and density in new establishments set up in the 1980s and 1990s are seen to be very similar for new workplaces in both decades, reflecting that the developments since 1990 represent a continuation of the pattern revealed in earlier work for the 1980-90 period. The sharpest falls in unionization occurred in private manufacturing establishments set up post-1980, with significant falls also occurring, but from a lower initial level, in private sector services. In the public sector there is no establishment age based decline in recognition. Finally, there is some evidence that age of workplace, rather than age of worker, is the critical age based factor. This seems to be the case as the negative association between unionization and the post-1980 set up of the establishment is found to hold for workers of all ages.Union recognition, union density, establishment age

Factors of Convergence and Divergence in Union Membership

This paper considers to what extent union decline in Britain has been characterised by convergence or divergence in union membership rates for people with different personal and job characteristics. It compares data on individual union membership in 1975, from a period when union membership was high and growing, to data in 2001 data when it is low and has been falling for over twenty years. Some factors of both convergence and divergence are identified. The clearest individual characteristic of convergence is gender. In 1975 there was a big male-female gap in union membership, whilst by 2001 one cannot reject the hypothesis that union membership rates were equal for men and women. The clearest case of divergence is age where the 1975-2001 period sees a widening of the age gap in union membership status. Other factors of convergence are the full- time/part-time status of jobs, ethnicity and workplace size. Other factors of divergence are industry and educational qualifications. Some other factors (like region) are neutral in that their relationship with union membership remains stable through time. Identification of these factors of convergence and divergence should be useful to many parties, including industrial relations scholars and union organisers. Finally, the fact that the magnitude of the relationships between union membership and a number of its determinants have shifted through time illustrates that one should be careful if one wishes to talk about empirical regularities in who is more or less likely to become a trade union member.

Academy schools under Labour combated disadvantage and increased pupil achievement: the coalition’s new policy may exacerbate existing inequalities

With the recent accusation that Michael Gove has been sending ‘mixed messages’ over academy schools, it is clear that the policy is still very controversial. Stephen Machin and James Vernoit take a step back and compare the academy schools created by Labour with the new ‘coalition academies’ that have either opened this autumn or applied for academy status since May, and finds the latter are likely to reinforce advantage and exacerbate existing inequalitie

Communicating the ideas and attitudes of spying in film music: A social semiotic approach

Taking the example of two 1960s popular spy films this paper explores how social semiotics can make a contribution to the analysis of film music. Following other scholars who have sought to create inventories of sound meanings to help us break down the way that music communicates, this paper explores how we can draw on the principles of Hallidayan functional grammar to present an inventory of meaning potentials in sound. This provides one useful way to describe the semiotic resources available to composers to allow them to communicate quite specific ideas, attitudes and identities through combinations of different sounds and sound qualities, by presenting them as systems of meaning rather than as lists of connotations. Here we apply this to the different uses of music and sound in Dr No and The Ipcress Files which allows us to show how we can reveal different ideologies of spying

Rising Wage Inequality and Postgraduate Education

This paper considers what has hitherto been a relatively neglected subject in the wage inequality literature, albeit one that has been becoming more important over time, namely the role played by increases in postgraduate education. We document increases in the number of workers with a postgraduate qualification in the United States and Great Britain. We also show their relative wages have risen over time as compared to all workers and more specifically to graduates with only a college degree. Consideration of shifts in demand and supply shows postgraduates and college only workers to be imperfect substitutes in production and that there have been trend increases over time in the relative demand for postgraduate vis-à-vis college only workers. These relative demand shifts are significantly correlated with technical change as measured by changes in industry computer usage and investment. Moreover, the skills sets possessed by postgraduates and the occupations in which they are employed are significantly different to those of college only graduates. Over the longer term period when computers have massively diffused into workplaces, it turns out that the principal beneficiaries of this computer revolution has not been all graduates, but those more skilled workers who have a postgraduate qualification. This has been an important driver of rising wage inequality amongst graduates over time.Wage inequality, postgraduate education, computers

Large benefits, low cost.

Is the government's National Literacy Strategy effective? Stephen Machin and Sandra McNally look at the evidence from the pilot project.