Trade Union Economics in Africa: An Overview

Abstract

The aim of this article is to provide an analytical review of recent work in Africa in the field of trade union economics, focusing on around ten countries. The issues addressed are diverse (challenges facing unions, workers' attitudes to unions, the union wage gap, firm performance among others). We have grouped the work around themes that are generally fruitful in this field: the existence of trade unionism, trade union attitudes to precariousness and informality, trade union membership, the trade union wage differential, and the effect of wage bargaining on economic performance. On the whole, the authors are unanimous on the existence of a trade union wage premium, explain the difficulties and reasons for low membership, reveal the growing interest of trade unions in workers in the informal sector, but find opposite results on the effect of trade unionism on company performance. There has been an evolution and diversity in the estimation methods adopted to obtain the results, with almost systematic use to individual data.