pubTalk

Job security remains one of the most important reasons that people work for the government. Though this preference may be met in part by higher rates of unionization, public bureaucracies tend to remain stable in turbulent economic periods. Members of protected employment classes tend to prefer work in the public sector. This preference is likely due to generally more effective anti-discrimination policies in place throughout government. Older workers were more likely to prefer government employment than their otherwise similar younger counterparts. Interestingly, women and higher-educated workers were found more likely to work in government, but no more likely to prefer public sector work.

In 2007, 8.2% of private and parapublic sector workers were covered by union protections. In contast, 39.8% of public sector employees were protected by union rules, including 45.6%--nearly half—of all local government employees (per the Bureau of Labor Statistics). (The data exclude self-employed workers, almost none of whom enjoy union protections.)

In interpreting these statistics, one cannot ignore the possible cohort differences in preferences for union membership. As of December 2007, 53% of the federal civilian workforce was eligible for retirement within two years. Given this disproportionately aging public workforce and the status quo bias of some public institutions, it seems plausible that higher rates of union membership are a combination of incumbent worker demand for unions and a slowness of government in adapting to competition for the labor supply of younger workers. As older cohorts transition out of the public workforce in retirement leaving their positions to be filled by younger generations, we may expect nationwide trends of declining union membership to extend to the public sector.

Life course sociologists like Stephen Sweet and Phyllis Moen (cited below) argue that for two-career families, the risks of job insecurity are doubled. American work and family institutions and our greater cultural environment have not adequately prepared couples for job loss in the new economy. In general, workplace and government institutions that together provide a framework for employment have not kept pace with the creative destruction of the old labor force model: one breadwinner, one homemaker. To successfully manage a labor force with increasingly heterogeneous work preferences, these institutions must provide more meaningful part-time opportunities and ease voluntary transitions in and out of the paid labor force.

Public agencies that fail to acknowledge that the changing field of competition for younger workers will increasingly be at a disadvantage as a large cohort of retirement-age workers opts out of work.

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Sweet, S., P. Moen and P. Meiksins. 2007. "Dual Earners in Double Jeopardy: Preparing for Job Loss in the New Risk Economy." Workplace Temporalities 17:437-461.

Moen, Phyllis, Roehling, Patricia. 2005. The Career Mystique: Cracks in the American Dream. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield.