Practice What You Preach: The Gender Pay Gap in Labor Union Compensation

Abstract

The existence of a gender pay gap has been well established in the literature but has remained unexplored within unions. Using 2000–2019 LM-2 data, our study quantifies the gender pay gap among union officers and staff in United States national and local unions. We find evidence that women face a gender wage penalty, with female officers in local unions and female staff in both national and local unions being paid significantly less than their male counterparts.