This article explores the role of union-centered brokerage in promoting women’s labor force participation in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries for the last three decades. Using two measures of brokerage, a union’s core brokerage role, and its general brokerage role, we attempted to capture the processes by which union activists mobilize and extend women’s rights in associational fields. Then, we tested our key argument that union-centered brokerage plays the most effective role among the different brokerage types in channeling women’s interests by transforming them into wider class-linked or cross-class concerns. Cross-national and comparative case studies demonstrate that union-led brokerage promotes greater presence of women in the economy. Our findings revealed that, when controlling for economic, regional, and cultural factors, both types of brokerage roles impact women’s participation in the labor market and their participation compared to that of men. The overall findings underscore the importance of creating and utilizing solidarity structures through effective channeling mechanisms in civic associational fields between labor-based organizations and other reform-oriented civic groups in achieving egalitarian socioeconomic goals.

本文探讨了过去三十年来以工会为中心的经纪在促进女性劳动力参与经济合作与发展组织国家中的作用。使用两种中介衡量标准，工会的核心中介角色和一般中介角色，我们试图捕捉工会活动家在协会领域动员和扩展妇女权利的过程。然后，我们测试了我们的关键论点，即以工会为中心的经纪在不同经纪类型中通过将女性利益转变为更广泛的与阶级相关或跨阶级的关注点，在引导女性利益方面发挥着最有效的作用。跨国和比较案例研究表明，工会主导的经纪促进了女性在经济中的更多存在。我们的研究结果表明，在控制经济、区域、和文化因素，两种类型的中介角色都会影响女性参与劳动力市场以及她们与男性相比的参与。总体调查结果强调了通过在以劳工为基础的组织和其他以改革为导向的公民团体之间的公民协会领域的有效引导机制来创建和利用团结结构以实现平等的社会经济目标的重要性。