Unions serve as primary labor market institutions that improve employees’ working conditions, yet existing literature offers mixed results of their influence on workers’ access to work–family policies. This may be partially due to the extant literature having not considered possible variation across work contexts. In this study, I ask whether union coverage can increase workers’ access to work–family policies and examine how family-friendly work contexts—public sector organizations and female-dominated occupations—can modify these union effects in the United States. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97 (2000–2017) and individual-fixed effect models, I analyze the impact of transitioning from a nonunion worker to a union-represented worker on the worker’s access to three work–family policies: paid parental leave, schedule control, and paid sick/vacation days. Results show that changing from a nonunion position to a union-represented one increases workers’ access to paid parental leave and paid sick/vacation days but decreases access to schedule control. The findings also show that workers in public sector organizations and female-dominated occupations tend to experience outsized benefits of union coverage on access to longer paid sick/vacation days. These findings suggest that the advantages of union coverage in workers’ access to work–family policies may be influenced by gendered work contexts.

中文翻译：

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工会、工作环境和工人获得工作家庭政策的机会


工会是改善员工工作条件的主要劳动力市场机构，但现有文献对工会对工人享受工作家庭政策的影响给出了好坏参半的结果。这可能部分是由于现有文献没有考虑工作环境之间可能存在的差异。在这项研究中，我询问工会覆盖率是否可以增加工人享受工作家庭政策的机会，并研究家庭友好型工作环境（公共部门组织和女性主导的职业）如何改变美国的工会影响。利用全国青年纵向调查 97（2000-2017 年）和个人固定效应模型，我分析了从非工会工人转变为工会代表的工人对工人获得三项工作家庭政策的影响：带薪育儿假、日程控制和带薪病假/假期。结果表明，从非工会职位转变为工会代表的职位可以增加工人享受带薪育婴假和带薪病假/假期的机会，但会减少对日程控制的机会。调查结果还表明，公共部门组织和女性主导职业的工人往往会在获得更长的带薪病假/假期时享受到工会保险带来的巨大好处。这些发现表明，工会覆盖在工人获得工作家庭政策方面的优势可能会受到性别工作环境的影响。