Migrant trade union membership, employment status and citizenship practices. A comparison of different European countries

The present paper investigates migrant trade union membership in three different European areas, i.e. Western and Nordic countries, Southern countries and Central-Eastern countries, drawing on data from the European Social Survey 2012 Round 6, ed. 2.0. Specifically, the objectives are twofold: first, to compare trade union membership between natives and migrants in the three European areas analysed; second, to investigate the extent to which the possibility of being a member of a trade union is affected by other factors, notably individual characteristics (age, migration background, gender); employment status (economic activity, type of contract) and citizenship practices. The descriptive analysis shows that migrant patterns of unionization vary greatly in the three areas considered. Moreover the multivariate analysis (logistic regression) highlights that some factors are strong prediction variables of trade union membership, specifically the migration background, gender, age, educational attainment, employment status, country area, and some citizenship practices.