Effects of Disability Insurance Generosity on Labor Market Outcomes and Worker Health
Publication Date
4-21-2021
Grant Type
Early Career Research Award
Description
The goal of this project is to identify how disability insurance (DI) generosity affects labor force participation and worker health and well-being. We will study a 2003 DI reform in Austria that substantially lowered the level of cash transfers for some individuals. Using linked data on Upper Austrian workers from 1996-2018 we will estimate how this change in DI generosity affected labor market outcomes, including unemployment claims, occupation, and wages, as well as health outcomes, including dependence on opioids and antidepressants, hospitalizations, cardiac events, and injuries. We will then link worker data to their children’s health records in an attempt to measure how much DI payments can affect health within households. In doing so, these estimates will speak to the welfare costs of tightening DI parameters and the spillover effects of health-related conditional cash transfers.
Grant Product
Disability Insurance Screening and Worker Outcomes Upjohn Institute Working Paper No. 22-375, 2022
Disability Insurance Screening and Workers’ Health and Labor Market Outcomes Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Brief No. 52, 2022
Ahammer, Alexander and Analisa Packham. 2022. "Disability Insurance Screening and Workers’ Health and Labor Market Outcomes." Employment Research 29(4): 4-7. https://doi.org/10.17848/1075-8445.29(4)-2