Works councils, wages and job satisfaction

Christian Grund (1) , Andreas Schmitt (2)

1 Department of Business and Economics
2 JMU - Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg

We investigate the effects of works councils on employees' wages and job satisfaction in general and for subgroups with respect to sex and occupational status. Making use of a German representative sample of employees, we find that employees, who move to a firm with a works council, report increases in job satisfaction, but do not receive particular wage increases. Especially the job satisfaction of female employees is affected by a change in works council status. However, we do not find support for the hypothesis that the introduction of a works council itself increases wages or job satisfaction for the employees staying at the firm.

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Domaines: Économie et finance quantitative [q-fin]

Christian Grund, Andreas Schmitt. Works councils, wages and job satisfaction. Applied Economics, 2011, 45 (03), pp.299-310. ⟨10.1080/00036846.2011.597735⟩. ⟨hal-00734527⟩