The Impact of a Disability on Labour Market Status: A Comparison of the Public and Private Sectors

Abstract

This study analyses the causal effect of a disability on subsequent labour market status by distinguishing between public employment and private employment in France. This study provides two original contributions. First, previous studies have not distinguished between the public and private sectors although the characteristics of these sectors are likely to affect the relationship between the occurrence of a disability and labour market status. Second, we implement a difference-in-differences approach combined with an exact and dynamic matching method, which has never been used to estimate the effect of a disability on labour market status. We utilise data from the Health and Labour Market Histories (HLMH) survey conducted in France during the period 2006-2007. The results indicate that the occurrence of a disability exerts a strong detrimental effect on private employment but has no significant effect on public employment during the five years after its occurrence. Moreover, this public/private difference is neither explained by differences in the type of disability nor by differences in the composition of the workforce employed in each sector.

An evaluation of the 1987 French Disabled Workers Act: better paying than hiring

“…Yet, contrary to this first assumption, the highest proportion of women in the post-reform could increase the detrimental effect of disability on employment. Indeed, the disabilities which affect women more often, like chronic diseases, are more penalising for the professional paths than those related to men, such as accidents (Barnay et al, 2015). We know that chronic diseases are especially damaging for employment.…”

“…The 1987 Disability Employment Act targeted both part-time and full-time jobs and applied to all establishments, whatever public or private, employing at least 20 employees. It fixed a hiring quota of 6% of disabled workers in total employment 2 . In practice, only private establishments were concerned by the obligation to administratively report the number of job filled by disabled people eligible to the OETH and, thus, had to pay financial penalties to the French institution dealing with the professional insertion of disabled people in the private sector (the AGEFIPH) when they did not reach the quota.…”

“…Disabled people are defined with regard to their eligibility to the legal employment obligation (OETH) and to the administrative recognition by the relevant institution (the disabled people's rights and auton- 1 See Demuijnck et al 2005 for a comparison of policies promoting employment to disabled people in different EU countries. 2 Let's notice that the scalability of the device was progressive, from 3% in 1988 to 4% in 1989 and finally 6% in 1991.…”

Harder, better, faster … Yet stronger? Working conditions and self‐declaration of chronic diseases

“…First, the choice of a job is unlikely a random experience (Cottini & Lucifora, ), resulting in contradictory assumptions. In particular, healthier individuals may tend to prefer (self‐selection) or to be preferred (discrimination) for more demanding jobs (Barnay, Duguet, Le Clainche, Narcy, & Videau, ). In this case, the estimations are likely to be biased downwards because of both healthier and more exposed individuals to demanding jobs being overrepresented in the sample (inducing a Healthy Worker Effect ; Haan & Myck, ).…”

Gender Differences in the Influence of Mental Health on Job Retention

“…Part of the determinants of such low rates comes from a lack of support in terms of labour market inclusion, for workers facing health-related issues. For instance, a stronger than average detrimental effect of disabilities and cancers on job retention can be found in this country (Barnay et al, 2015). French workers also increasingly face the risk of losing their job, job security, and job sustainability thus appearing as a growing concern for policy makers.…”