Benjamin Artz

The Impact of Union Experience on Job Satisfaction

The relationship between union status and job satisfaction is commonly estimated without recognizing the heterogeneity of non-union members. Many non-union workers have experienced union jobs in the past while others have not, suggesting past estimations of the impact of unions on job satisfaction may miss a critical distinction. After separating non-union members into those workers with and without union experience, this article shows that job satisfaction increases significantly for first-time union workers, but decreases as workers accumulate experience in the union. Finally, after leaving the union jobs, worker job satisfaction recovers but does so only as the time since unionization grows.

Boss Competence and Worker Well-being

Nearly all workers have a supervisor or “boss.” Yet little is known about how bosses influence the quality of employees’ lives. This study offers new evidence. First, the authors find that a boss’s technical competence is the single strongest predictor of a worker’s job satisfaction. Second, they demonstrate using longitudinal data, after controlling for fixed-effects, that even if a worker stays in the same job and workplace, a rise in the competence of a supervisor is associated with an improvement in the worker’s well-being. Third, the authors report a variety of robustness checks, including tentative instrumental variable results. These findings, which draw on U.S. and British data, contribute to an emerging literature on the role of “expert leaders” in organizations.

Does the Impact of Union Experience on Job Satisfaction Differ by Gender

The author investigates gender differences in the impact of accumulated union experience on job satisfaction. Because there are fewer women than men in both public and private sector unions, and women are disproportionately underrepresented in union leadership, their collective bargaining power is not equivalent to that of men. As a result, womens preferences for job characteristics and benefits may be overlooked, contributing to reduced job satisfaction as their tenure in the union increases. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) panel data from 1979–2004, the author demonstrates that the accumulation of union experience negatively affects womens job satisfaction more severely than it does mens. This is particularly the case in private sector unions, in which women are more likely to be under-represented in both union membership and leadership positions.

The impact of job security on job satisfaction in economic contractions versus expansions

Job security, often measured using the perceived risk of job loss in the near future, is a significant determinant of job satisfaction. We posit that the impact job security has on job satisfaction is not only a function of how likely it is that a worker loses a job but also how likely it is that a worker could find another. The effect this has on worker job satisfaction then is different depending on whether perceived job loss occurs (or not) when job openings are scarce or when job openings are plentiful. We use difference-in-differences analysis of the 1997 and 2008 waves from the National Study of the Changing Workforce to show that three measures of job security increase private sector worker job satisfaction, and reduce worker incentives to quit, more when job openings are relatively scarce (during contractions) than when job openings are relatively plentiful (during expansions). We find that our results are strongest among less-educated workers.

Job Insecurity and Job Satisfaction in the United States: The Case of Public Sector Union Workers

We measure the association between perceived job insecurity and job satisfaction in the United States and focus on public sector union workers. Job satisfaction decreases with perceived job insecurity among union workers in the public sector and primarily when tenure with an employer is high.

The impact of supervisor age on employee job satisfaction

As workers in the United States get older, it is increasingly likely that they will have significantly younger supervisors. In these instances, workers experience status incongruence – the supervisor–subordinate relationship does not conform to social ‘norms’. As a result workers may, in some instances, be dissatisfied with their opportunities for advancement if they have a significantly younger supervisor. This is most likely the case among more educated workers, potentially leading to lower job satisfaction and increased likelihood of quits. Ordered probit estimations of the 2008 wave of the National Study of the Changing Workforce confirm these hypotheses.

The Effect of Peer and Professor Gender on College Student Performance

The effects of peer and professor gender on student performance have been examined separately but not in conjunction. We augment previous research by including peer and professor gender, as well as their interaction, in estimations of student performance. After controlling for both student and faculty fixed effects we find that female students typically perform better than males, but this performance gap varies depending on the gender of the professor and of the classroom. Overall the effect of professor gender on student performance is small at best if classrooms are predominantly female and much larger if classrooms are predominantly male.

The Effect of Student Evaluations on Academic Success.

This article uses longitudinal student-level data from the American University of Sharjah, a large comprehensive university in the Middle East, to examine the relationship between student evaluations of teachers and current and future student achievement. Our model strategies control for the observed and unobserved heterogeneity of students and use unique instruments. We find that when all disciplines are examined together there is a positive relationship between current evaluation and current grade point average (GPA) but a negative relationship between past evaluations and current GPA. Discipline-specific estimations find the same results in the math and science course subsample, but for other course types there is little relation between evaluation and GPA.

Childcare quality and pricing: evidence from Wisconsin

Childcare prices vary dramatically both between and within states. We identify the effects of demographic and provider characteristics on childcare pricing, but focus primarily on whether unique government-provided information on childcare quality has an effect on pricing. Using provider-level observations across three adjacent counties in southern Wisconsin, we find that this government-provided information on childcare quality does not significantly affect pricing. Recognizing that information asymmetry may be the root cause of the insignificant relationship, we test the relationship further within multiple subsamples and with alternative models. Only the lowest quality childcare providers are significantly associated with lower prices in areas that we hypothesize suffer from greater information asymmetry.

Note-Taking in the Digital Age: Evidence from Classroom Random Control Trials

Taking good notes is linked to success in college. However, increased use of computers to take notes necessitates reconsideration of the linkages between note-taking and learning. One difficulty is...