An empirical analysis of various waves of the ALLBUS social survey shows that the level and the structure of unionization has become more and more similar in eastern and western Germany in the period 1992 to 2000. The originally high level of union density in eastern Germany has dropped below...

An empirical analysis of various waves of the ALLBUS social survey shows that union density fell substantially in West Germany from 1980 to 2000. Such a negative trend can be observed for men and women and for different groups of the workforce. Repeated cross-sectional analyses suggest that a...

Using data from the social survey ALLBUS for West Germany in the period 1980 to 2006, this paper demonstrates that union members are on average older than non-unionized employees. The probability of being unionized shows the inverted U-shaped pattern in age conjectured by Blanchflower (BJIR...

In this note, we apply a new test by Lind and Mehlum (2010), casting doubt on the claim proposed by Blanchflower (2007) that the probability of unionisation follows an inverted U-shaped pattern in age with a maximum in the mid- to late 40s. With this new test for an inverted U-shaped pattern,...