Using basic personal values to test theories of union membership

Abstract

Using data from the fourth round of the European Social Survey, we investigate the determinants of the individual union membership decision, focusing on the role of dispositionalas opposed to situationalfactors. We argue that the battery of items in Schwartzs (1992) theory of basic personal values is relevant in the context of unionism and can be used to test the validity of certain elements of existing theories. We further claim that the use of basic values in this context is an effective way of operationalizing the role of societal interests embedded in the rational choice explanations for union membership. The econometric workwhich features a three-way outcome variable identifying current, former and never-membersreveals that, along with socio-demographic, ideological, firm-level and sectoral characteristics, basic values are closely related to union membership status. While higher self-transcendence and conservation scores are associated with a greater likelihood of being a current member, higher openness-to-change and self-enhancement scores have the opposite effect.