ICTWSS: Database on Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts in 34 countries between1960 and 2007
Jelle Visser
Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS)
University of Amsterdam
Version 3 – May 2011
The new ICTWSS database (version 3.0) of Jelle Visser is now available with more countries, more variables and updated till 2010.
Click here for the codebook
Click here for the ICTWSS Database 3, May 2011
The ICTWSS database covers four key elements of modern political economies in advanced capitalist societies: trade unionism, wage setting, state intervention and social pacts. The database contains annual data for 34 countries: Australia; Austria; Belgium; Bulgaria; Canada; Cyprus; the Czech Republic; Denmark; Estonia; Germany; Greece; Finland; France; Hungary; Ireland; Italy; Japan; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; the Netherlands; New Zealand; Malta; Norway; Poland; Portugal; Romania; Spain; Slovenia; Slovakia; Sweden; Switzerland; the United Kingdom; the United States; and it runs from 1960 till 2010. The 90 variables contained in this database are described in the code book included in this text.
The part on social pacts was developed in the framework of the NEWGOV project, financed under the EU FP6 research framework, on “Distributive Politics, Learning and Reform: National Social Pacts”, directed by Sabina Avdagic, Martin Rhodes and myself. Our database contains information on the negotiation and signing of pacts, the actors involved, whether these were wage pacts or pacts dealing with other issues, whether they were broad or single-issue pacts. In addition the database covers the existence of bipartite agreements on wage and non-wage issues, distinguishing between agreements that are negotiated and implemented autonomously by trade unions and employers’ organisations, and agreements that depend on the support and sponsorship of the state. In addition the database contains information on the existence of bipartite and/or tripartite councils or bodies for social economic policy making, advice and forecasting, and the degree to which trade unions and employers’ organisations are routinely involved in the preparation of public policies in the social and economic domain. All data are newly collected based on data from the project and from various national sources and comparative studies. A separate textual database (ICTWSS-Txt, available in March 2009) discusses the coding and locates the sources.
The part on wage setting focuses on union or bargaining coverage, extension of contracts, coordination, government intervention, minimum wage setting and union centralisation. The data on union or bargaining coverage are from various national and comparative sources, including Traxler (1994), OECD (2004), EIRO (2002), Visser (2004), survey data for the US, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as historical estimates from Ochel, 2001. Kenworthy (2001) is the key source for the coordination of wage setting scores, with my own data for Central and Eastern Europe and recent years added.
There are a few subtle differences in the wage coordination scale used here and the one used by Kenworthy (see code book, infra) and for some years and countries my scores and his differ (these differences will be discussed in ICTWSS.txt). As the Kenworthy scale allows ranking from high to low, I have preferred his approach to the coding in Traxler, Blaschke and Kittel (2001). The five-point scale measuring government intervention was developed by Hassel (2006) though I have made two major changes, one to allow a distinction between (a) non-intervention but supporting and facilitating broad sectoral unions and agreements (the case of Germany); and (b) non-intervention while creating or upholding a legal framework that favours fragmented and company unionism and bargaining (the case of the UK). The other change is that the scale used here distinguishes between (a) interventions that impose by law a stop on free bargaining or a ceiling on its outcomes and (b) interventions by means of a social pact negotiated with the unions and employers for some quid pro quo. The data are from Hassel (2006), Golden and Lange (1996), Golden, Lange, and Wallerstein (2006), at http://www.shelley.polisci.ucla.edu/
(version dated June 16, 2006), and my own updates for Central and Eastern Europe, New Zealand and recent years. I have reduced the 15-points Golde-Lange-Walllerstein (2006) scale to my five-point scale based, as suggested by Hassel, 2006 (see code book, below).
Another key aspect of government intervention relates to minimum wage setting. Based on a study of the institutional aspects of minimum wage setting (does a mandatory exists in all or some parts of the economy; how do governments reach decisions; is there an index; what role do social partners play, etc.) I have developed a coding. The data are from the OECD and from various national sources, among others collected from EIRO.
There are two indicators for centralisation, one for bargaining centralisation, the other more specifically for the role of trade unions and taking into account both a vertical (authority of higher over lower units or actors) and horizontal (integration or concentration of units or actors) dimension. The indicator on bargaining centralisation measures, simply, the dominant level at which bargaining between employers and unions over wages takes place, distinguishing three levels (central, sectoral, local or company) and five combinations. The index for union centralisation follows the methodology proposed by Iversen (1999) and combines data on the concentration or fragmentation of trade unions with information on the division of authority in the union movement (Visser, 1990; Windmuller, 1975). The data are new and presented here for the first time (see below, and code book).
In addition, the ICTWSS Database contains basic comparative information on the organisation, nature and extent of workplace representation (information, consultation or co-determination) of employees at the level of the employing organisation (firms, enterprises and establishments). The data are from various national sources as well as from recent surveys of the Dublin Foundation and available through the EIRO website.
On the organisation of unions and key bargaining units, indicated by the concentration or fragmentation of unions and confederations, and by the authority division between them, the main source on union concentration are Ebbinghaus and Visser (2000) for Western Europe; EIRO (2003) and the database of the Institut des Sciences du Travail of the Université Catholique du Louvain on les partenaires sociaux en Europe, developed for the European Commission (http://www.trav.ucl.ac.be/recherche), Carley, 2004, and various sources as well as EIRO country reports for Eastern Europe, and Golden, Lange and Wallerstein (2006) for non-European OECD countries. The data for the two five-point scales for confederal and union authority are mainly from Visser (1990) for Western Europe and the national (unpublished) reports for the DUES Handbook (Ebbinghaus and Visser, 2000) and from Golden, Lange and Wallerstein (2006) for non-European OECD Countries. The data for Central and Eastern Europe is from the UCL files and several national and comparative sources.
Finally, the part on trade union membership and union density comes from Ebbinghaus and Visser (2000) for Western European countries, Visser, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 2006 for extensions to non-European countries, combined with recent administrative data on union organization and membership from the Dublin Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Carley, 2004) and from the European Social Survey (waves of 2002 and 2004) for countries in Eastern and Central Europe (for the sources and methods: R. Jowell and Central Coordinating Team (2003): European Social Survey 2002/2003. Technical Report. London: Centre for Comparative Social Surveys, City University, and http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org. All series have been updated till 2007 in this file. Sources and methodologies are described in Visser, 2006. The methodology followed is the same as in Ebbinghaus and Visser (2000), but when available (for instance in the US, UK, Australia, Sweden, and the Netherlands) I have preferred household survey data for calculating ‘net’ union density rates. The database contains two series, one for gross membership (including members who are unemployed, self-employed or – the largest group – have retired from the labour market, and one for ‘net’ membership without these groups. The series on ‘net’ membership matches the data on the employed dependent labour force or ‘wage and salary earners in employment’ and is the one used for calculating union density rates (here defined as the share of union members in the employed dependent labour force). It is also the series best compared with survey data.
The labour force data are from the OECD (Labour Force Statistics, various years). In the case of countries not belonging to the OECD, the statistics are from Eurostat or, for the years before 1994 or 1995, from United Nations and World Bank statistical sources.
Click here for the code book
Click here for the ICTWSS Database 2.1 2009
