Dataset Information

Union Burying Ground: Mortality, Mortality Inequities, and Sinking Labor Union Membership in the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Over the last several decades in the United States, socioeconomic life-expectancy inequities have increased 1-2 years. Declining labor-union density has fueled growing income inequities across classes and exacerbated racial income inequities. Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, we examined the longitudinal union-mortality relationship and estimated whether declining union density has also exacerbated mortality inequities.

Methods

Our sample included respondents ages 25-66 to the 1979-2015 PSID with mortality follow-up through age 68 and year 2017. To address healthy-worker bias, we used the parametric g-formula. First, we estimated how a scenario setting all (versus none) of respondents' employed-person-years to union-member employed-person-years would have affected mortality incidence. Next, we examined gender, racial, and educational effect modification. Finally, we estimated how racial and educational mortality inequities would have changed if union-membership prevalence had remained at 1979 (vs. 2015) levels throughout follow-up.

Results

In the full sample (respondents = 23,022, observations = 146,681), the union scenario was associated with lower mortality incidence than the nonunion scenario (RR = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.80, 0.99; RD per 1,000 = -19, 95% CI = -37, -1). This protective association generally held across subgroups, although it was stronger among the more-educated. However, we found little evidence mortality inequities would have lessened if union membership had remained at 1979 levels.

Conclusions

To our knowledge, this was the first individual-level US-based study with repeated union-membership measurements to analyze the union-mortality relationship. We estimated a protective union-mortality association, but found little evidence declining union density has exacerbated mortality inequities; importantly, we did not incorporate contextual-level effects. See video abstract at, http://links.lww.com/EDE/B839.

SUBMITTER: Eisenberg-Guyot J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8338895 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Union Burying Ground: Mortality, Mortality Inequities, and Sinking Labor Union Membership in the United States.

Eisenberg-Guyot Jerzy J Mooney Stephen J SJ Barrington Wendy E WE Hajat Anjum A

Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) 20210901 5

<h4>Background</h4>Over the last several decades in the United States, socioeconomic life-expectancy inequities have increased 1-2 years. Declining labor-union density has fueled growing income inequities across classes and exacerbated racial income inequities. Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, we examined the longitudinal union-mortality relationship and estimated whether declining union density has also exacerbated mortality inequities.<h4>Methods</h4>Our sample included respon ...[more]

PMID: 34224470

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Dataset Information

Union Burying Ground: Mortality, Mortality Inequities, and Sinking Labor Union Membership in the United States.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Union Burying Ground: Mortality, Mortality Inequities, and Sinking Labor Union Membership in the United States.

Similar Datasets

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