The Decline in Male Labor Force Participation

Parsons, Donald O.

doi:10.1086/260850

Cited by 339 publications

(186 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Several models have evolved to explain the majority of the variance in employment outcomes of musculoskeletal disease not accounted for by medical severity. The most prominent model attributes the loss of employment to malingering, especially when the person with the musculoskeletal condition has the expectation of replacing lost income with disability benefits [the ratio of income while working to income from disability benefits is called the replacement ratio) (11)(12)(13). However, the most conscientious efforts to study the impact of the replacement ratio, including one specific to musculoskeletal disease, find either minimal or no impact on employment, suggesting that one cannot explain the work disability rate of persons with these conditions on the basis of objective measures of the work disincentive of disability compensation programs (14)(15)(16).…”

Section: Models Of Causationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Musculoskeletal conditions and employment

Yelin

1995

Arthritis & Rheumatism

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Objective. To describe the prevalence, incidence, and correlates of work disability among persons with musculoskeletal conditions.Methods. Literature review and analysis of the Health and Retirement Survey, a national, probability sample of community-based adults ages 51-62.Results. Clinical samples of persons with RA report work disability rates of 52 % to 60%. Communitybased studies of persons with a broad range of musculoskeletal conditions find work disability rates of 38% to 7.270, depending on the mix of symptoms and particular sampling strategy. Persons with musculoskeletal conditions and comorbidity are particularly prone to work loss, with three-quarters leaving work prior to the normal age of retirement. In multivariate models, after adjusting for demographic and functional characteristics, persons with musculoskeletal conditions actually are more likely to work than those without.Conclusions. Persons with musculoskeletal conditions have high rates of work disability, but given their level of impairment, are more likely to work than persons without musculoskeletal conditions.

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Section: Models Of Causationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Musculoskeletal conditions and employment

Yelin

1995

Arthritis & Rheumatism

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“…This study was followed by several ones which never disputed the disin-centive effects of disability insurance but questioned their magnitude [see e.g. Bound (1989), Parsons (1980Parsons ( , 1991 and Gruber (2000)]. This literature shows that there are two issues: one concerns the number of truly disabled workers and the other concerns the number of beneficiaries from disability insurance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Parsons (1980) in a widely quoted paper shows that social security program explains a large fraction of the postwar decline in prime-age labor force participation. This study was followed by several ones which never disputed the disin-centive effects of disability insurance but questioned their magnitude [see e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disability Testing and Retirement

Cremer¹,

Lozachmeur²

2007

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis &Amp; Policy

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This paper studies the design of retirement and disability policies. It illustrates the often observed exit from the labor force of healthy workers through disability insurance schemes. Two types of individuals, disabled and leisure-prone ones, have the same disutility for labor and cannot be distinguished. However, they are not counted in the same way in social welfare. Benefits depend on retirement age and on the (reported) health status. We determine first-and second-best optimal benefit levels and retirement ages and focus on the distortions which may be induced in the individuals' retirement decision. Then we introduce the possibility of testing which sorts out disabled workers from healthy but retirement-prone workers. We show that such testing can increase both social welfare and the rate of participation of elderly workers; in addition disabled workers are better taken care of. It is not optimal to test all applicants, nor to apply testing to all types of benefits. Surprisingly, the (second-best) solution may imply later retirement for the disabled than for the leisure prone. In that case, the disabled are compensated by higher benefits.

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“…Most have involved an analysis of the relationship between the DI replacement rate (a ratio of average DI awards to average earnings) and the labor force participation rate or number of disability applications. In general, these studies have supported the theoretically logical supposition that an increase in the level of disability benefits available is associated with an increase in disability applications (Lando, Coate, and Kraus, 1979) and a decrease in labor force participation (Parsons, 1980;Haveman and Wolfe, 1984;Haveman, Wolfe, and Warlick, 1987;Kreider, 1994). These studies vary widely, however, in their findings on the size of these effects.…”

Section: B Evidencementioning

confidence: 62%

“…At one extreme, Parsons (1980) found that a 1.0% increase in the replacement rate increases the percentage of men age 48-62 who are not in the labor force by 0.62%. Several other studies, however, suggest that the effect of the same increase is no more than a 0.03% reduction in male labor force participation.…”

Section: B Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%