Ethnic Diversity and Trust in the Workplace
Keywords:
Ethnic diversity, trust, trade union, workplacesAbstract
This paper investigates the effects of ethnic diversity on overall trust in the workplace and the trust that workers place in trade unions. Several key results emerge. First, there is a U-shaped relationship between ethnic diversity and overall workplace trust. Conversely, the relationship between ethnic diversity and the trust in trade unions is an inverted U-shaped one. The overall workplace trust is lowest when the ethnic share within the workplaces reaches 14.1%. Meanwhile, trust in trade unions is likely to decline when ethnic share within the workplaces reaches the range of 37–49%. Finally, when ethnic diversity is controlled for, the overall workplace trust index is negatively correlated with the trust shown towards trade unions. A unit increase in the overall workplace trust index reduces the probability of trusting trade unions by 5–12.7%. The results are robust and are tested against the problem of endogeneity bias.
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