As more people are diagnosed at earlier stages and surviving cancer, they are increasingly likely to be at working ages, where issues regarding productivity and employment continuation must be addressed by patients and employers alike. To this end, we studied the employment patterns of 253 long-term cancer survivors in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Of those working at the time of their initial diagnosis, 67% were employed 5-7 years later. Patients who stopped working did so because they retired (54%), were in poor health/disabled (24%), quit (4%), cited other reasons (9%), or their business closed (9%). Many employed patients worked in excess of 40 h per week although some reported various degrees of disability that interfered with job performance. Overall, the ability of cancer patients to continue employment appears optimistic.

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Prostate cancer and its treatment appear to have an impact on employment.

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Objective. To investigate the effect of breast cancer on women's labor supply. Date Source/Study Setting. Using the 1992 Health and Retirement Study, we estimate the probability of working using probit regression and then, for women who are employed, we estimate regressions for average weekly hours worked using ordinary least squares (OLS). We control for health status by using responses to perceived health status and comorbidities. For a sample of married women, we control for spouses' employer-based health insurance. We also perform additional analyses to detect selection bias in our sample. Principal Findings. We find that the probability of breast cancer survivors working is 10 percentage points less than that for women without breast cancer. Among women who work, breast cancer survivors work approximately three more hours per week than women who do not have cancer. Results of similar magnitude persist after health status is controlled in the analysis, and although we could not definitively rule out selection bias, we could not find evidence that our results are attributable to selection bias. Conclusions. For some women, breast cancer may impose an economic hardship because it causes them to leave their jobs. However, for women who survive and remain working, this study failed to show a negative effect on hours worked associated with breast cancer. Perhaps the morbidity associated with certain types and stages of breast cancer and its treatment does not interfere with work.