The labor-supply effects of universal health coverage: What can we learn from individuals with spousal coverage?

Employment‐contingent health insurance, illness, and labor supply of women: evidence from married women with breast cancer

“…An extensive literature has examined the relationship between health insurance and labor supply with regard to job lock (Cooper and Monheit, 1993;Gruber and Madrian, 1994;Kapur, 1998;Pauly, 1997;Adams, 2004). Other research has shown that married women's labor supply decreases when they are dependents on their husband's health insurance policies (Olson, 1995;Wellington and Cobb-Clark, 2000;Buchmueller and Valletta, 1999;Chou and Staiger, 2001). …”

“…Past research has examined the labor supply behavior of individuals who have employment-contingent health insurance (Cooper and Monheit, 1993;Gruber and Madrian, 1994;Kapur, 1998;Adams, 2004) and of individuals dependent upon another's policy (Wellington and Cobb-Clark, 2000;Buchmueller and Valletta, 1999;Chou and Staiger, 2001). The effects of health on labor supply have also been studied (examples include Bradley et al, 2005;Stern, 1989;Ettner et al, 1997;Vijan et al, 2004).…”

Retiree Health Benefits and Retirement

“…Second, a small literature has examined the effect of one spouse's labor supply behavior on the other's labor supply (for example, Buchmueller and Valletta 1999, Wellington and Cobb-Clark 2000, Olson 2000), so we add to the model variables capturing the employment of each man's wife. Third, because health is such an important factor in people's retirement decisions, we add to the list of health indicators each individual's self-reported health status.…”

Married Women’s Labor Supply and Spousal Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: Results from Panel Data

“…Buchmueller and Valletta (1999) employed Tobit, probit, and multinomial logit specifications and found a 15-36% reduction in hours worked and an 11-12% reduction in the probability of working full-time. Wellington and Cobb-Clark (2000), using probit and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) procedures, found a 19.5% reduction in the probability of labor force participation and a 7.1-14.8% reduction in annual hours worked.…”

“…Previous studies have addressed this problem in different ways. Olson (1998) and Wellington and Cobb-Clark (2000) used empirical methods that assumed the exogeneity of spousal insurance coverage, though both studies acknowledged the potential for bias in their estimates. Olson (1998) reported a lower-bound to his semiparametric estimates, implicitly assuming a downward bias on the negative effect of spousal coverage on wives' labor supply.…”