IS The Determinants of Union Membership Growth in Taiwan BASU SHARMA and PETER SEPHTON University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, N.B., Canada E3B 5A3 This paper examines the determinants of intertemporal variation in the growth rate of trade union membership in Taiwan during 1960-1987. The empirical results indi- cate that the widely used empirical model of growth in trade union membership based largely on cyclical variables applies to the case of a newly industrialized Asian country—Taiwan. \. Introduction Taiwan is one of the few developing nations that has recently been designated a newly industrialized country (NIC).' That country's prominence among NICs is pri- marily the result of its impressive economic growth. The astounding performance of the Taiwanese economy has been well-documented and analyzed. Taiwan's eco- nomic transformation has been accompanied by a secular increase in trade union membership, but with intertemporal variations in its rate of growth. To the best of our knowledge, however, no study has analyzed determinants of these variations in a systematic way. In this paper, we examine the determinants of intertemporal variations in the growth rate of Taiwan's trade union membership by testing a union growth model based on cyclical variables. To cast the study in a proper frame of reference, we first discuss the trade union situation and some important institutional characteristics. A discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of the model follows. Methodology and data sources are then described and empirical results are presented. IL Trade Union Situation Union membership has grown very rapidly in Taiwan since the mid-1950s. There were only 104,000 union members in the country in 1955, representing 3.8 percent of the total labor force. Membership increased to 280,000 by 1960, to 334,000 by 1965, to 488,000 by 1970, to 765,000 by 1975, and to 1,074,000 by 1980. By 1987, Taiwan's unions could boast 1,874,000 members, or 22.9 percent of the total labor force, with 27.6 percent of workers in the nonagricultural employment listed as union members. This level of trade union density for a newly industrialized country is quite high. JOURNAL OF LABOR RESEARCH Volume XII, Number 4 Fall 1991