Unions' Responsiveness to the Aging of the Workforce

Abstract

The aging of the workforce in the United States has been well documented, and workplaces are beginning to consider the implications of this demographic shift with regard to employees' needs and preferences for specific types of benefits and human resource policies. The presence of unions, associations that have traditionally advocated for benefits and protections for their members, may be one factor that affects the readiness of workplaces to adapt to the aging of the workforce. A national study reported here has found that though workplaces with union presence are more likely to provide some of the benefits important to older workers, such as health insurance for the families of part-time employees, they are less likely to have a more comprehensive scope of flexible work options available to most of their employees.

KEYWORDS:

• aging workforce
• benefits
• older workers
• unions

This research was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Notes

FT = full-time; PT = part-time.

^a yes = 1, no = 0.

^a n1 = n for “no union” presence category; n2 = n for “at least some” union presence category.

^a n1 = n for “no union” presence category; n2 = n for “at least some” union presence category.

Note: B = unstandardized coefficient, SEB = standard error, β = standardized coefficient.

^a yes = 1, no = 0.

∗p < .05, ∗∗p < .01.

There is no consistent definition of the age at which workers become “older” workers (see Pitt-Catsouphes & Smyer, 2006). The analyses discussed in this paper focus on workers age 55 and older.

The Families and Work Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that studies the changing workforce and workplace, the changing family and the changing community.

For example, if 60% of the respondent organization's workforce was full-time and the flexible option in question was available to only “some” of these full-time employees, the organization would receive a score of .60 for this item (.60∗1 = .6pts).

Univariate examinations of this variable revealed two extreme outliers at the very top of the distribution at 100% and 78%. These cases were recoded to 60% and 55%, respectively, to bring them closer to the rest of the distribution.

The U.S. GAO (2005) anticipates an increase in the percentage of older workers holding white collar occupations, from 19% to 23%, between 2004 and 2014.

Univariate examinations of this variable revealed an extreme outlier at the very bottom of the distribution at 1.24. This case was recoded to 1.67 to bring it closer to the rest of the distribution.