Differences in the returns to education for males by disability status and age of disability onset.
Hollenbeck, Kevin ; Kimmel, Jean
1. Introduction
In 1990, the U.S. Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA), legislation perceived as a hallmark in the quest by
individuals with disabilities for equal access to labor market opportunities. Numerous studies have been published in recent years
assessing the outcomes to date of this legislation, and much debate
continues regarding its success or failure in improving labor market
outcomes. However, the ADA is only one means of addressing labor market
difficulties faced by individuals with disabilities. Because its primary
intent is to expand the number of employment opportunities via employer
accommodation, the ADA may be characterized as a demand-side intervention. (1) Numerous education, training, and rehabilitation
programs operate on the supply side of the labor market. One example of
increased attention on supply-side programs may be seen in the Workforce
Investment Act of 1998. This sort of disability management model program
has the goal of enhancing the skills and knowledge of workers with
disabilities to increase their productivity and employability. (2) The
returns to education for the population with disabilities is indicative
of the potential efficacy of such supply-side interventions. If the
rates of return to formal education are large, then it might be argued
that there is an underinvestment in such interventions. If the rates are
low, then expanding this human capital intervention as a way to improve
employment or earnings may not be indicated. Formal educational
attainment and its differential effects by disability status and age of
onset are the focus of this paper.
For an individual with a work-limiting condition, the age of onset
of this condition plays a role in education choices and employment. A
priori, one might expect that among the population with disabilities,
those with early onset of the disability are the most able to adjust
human capital investments and obtain job matches that minimize the
potentially negative labor market impacts of the disabling condition
(see Loprest and Maag 2003). However, the early onset of the disability
might hinder human capital investment or affect its quality.
Many studies and data sets have been used to document the
disparities in employment-related outcomes between people with and
without disabilities, and many nice summaries exist in the literature.
(3) Depending on the data used and the definition of disability, (4)
approximately 8-15% of individuals of working age have disabilities. In
general, individuals with a disability report lower employment rates,
lower levels of educational attainment, and lower wages. Additionally,
many researchers have reported a post-ADA decline in employment rates,
although the cause of this trend is not clear and might be related to a
worsening in recent years of disability severity amongst the population
reporting disabilities, or the trend might be confounded by changes in
the labor force participation rates among the disabled. (5)
The disability literature is lacking in detailed information
regarding the role that age of onset of disability may play in education
and employment outcomes. Using data from the Health and Retirement
Survey, Burkhauser, Butler, and Weathers (2002) find that the average
age of disability onset amongst those with working-age onset is 47.9
years for men and 47.4 years for women. (6) Burkhauser and Daly (1996)
report that approximately 70% of individuals with disabilities in their
study (using the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics) became disabled during
their working lives. The authors show that employment rates decline
after disability declaration, but incomes fall more, with male labor
earnings falling approximately 25-30% and female labor earnings falling
nearly 50% (p. 72). Additional evidence regarding age of disability
onset can be gleaned from published reports from the 2000 Census (see,
for example, Waldrop and Stern 2003), which show clearly, as expected,
that disability rates rise with age. While only 5.8% of the population
aged 5 to 15 years report any disability, that percentage increases to
18.5% for the working-age population and to 41.9% for those aged 65
years or older. Related to factors associated with age of disability
onset is variation in disability status (i.e., disability status is not
always permanent and a large percentage of those reporting disabilities
in any given year report themselves as newly disabled) (Kruse and Schur 2003b, p. 290).
Loprest and Maag (2003) provide a detailed portrait of educational
attainment and age of onset of disability. Using data from the National
Health Interview Survey, they indicate that only about 16.3% of their
sample reporting disabilities reported onset prior to age 22 years.
Fully one third of this early-onset group failed to achieve a high
school education, while only 7.8% reported college completion. While the
late-onset group (those who experience disability onset after age 22
years) also reported surprisingly similar high rates of failure to
complete high school, they reported twice the rate of college
completion. Loprest and Maag find that the two groups have comparable
employment rates but that the late-onset group earns higher average
hourly wages. (7)
2. Wage Regression Evidence for Workers with and without
Disabilities
Looking broadly at the literature that provides estimates of wage
equations for people with disabilities, we classify the relevant
literature into three groups: papers that focus on measurement and
endogeneity concerns, papers that focus on particular forms of
disability, and papers that focus on discrimination. The first component
of the disability literature recognizes significant heterogeneity by
type of disability and how disability is measured. (8) Kruse (1997) uses
the 1992 and 1993 Panels of the Survey of Income and Program
Participation, otherwise known as the SIPP, to focus on those with
disabilities using a broad definition of disability. He finds that while
individuals with severe disabilities have much lower employment rates
than the non-disabled, rates for those with moderate disabilities are
not so different. He suggests that unobserved (or unmeasured)
characteristics such as ability, job access, or discrimination partially
explain the lower employment rates, although he also allows that
diminished returns to human capital (the focus of this paper) might also
play a role.
Kruse and Schur (2003a) focus further on different measures of
disability and the role that these different measures play in explaining
employment-related disparities and ADA effects. They explain that, in
general, the negative association between employment and disability is
"due in part to high reservation wages associated with many
disabilities, particularly resulting from disability income and extra
demands on time and energy" (p. 3). (9)
Also relating to measurement issues is the literature that focuses
on the endogeneity of self-reported disability (often tied with the
ability to work). Stern (1989) finds that the endogeneity bias may be
minimal, however. He finds that two self-reported health status measures
(a work-limiting condition measure and an overall health status measure)
serve as good proxies for estimating the effect of disability on labor
force participation.
Moving beyond broader measurement issues is the literature that
focuses on employment outcomes experienced by individuals with
particular forms of disability. As examples, Ettner, Frank, and Kessler
(1997) focus on psychiatric disorders, and Mitchell and Burkhauser
(1990) focus on arthritis. Both find important wage and employment
differences for those suffering from these particular forms of
disability and offer as explanations differences in productivity and
differential outcomes by sex. (10)
The final category of disability research that we highlight here
includes studies that attempt to identify the presence of employer
discrimination or prejudice. It is this strand of the disability
literature that is most relevant to our paper because of its estimates
of returns to education by disability status as a by-product of the
focus on the role that disability plays in wage determination. This
literature presents mixed results about the returns to education for men
with disabilities versus those without. Johnson and Lambrinos (1985)
estimate the returns to a year of education for non-handicapped men to
be 0.054, whereas they find men with handicaps generate a 0.040 return.
Baldwin and Johnson (1994) estimate returns to education of 0.059 for
men without disabilities, 0.055 for men with disabilities (i.e., having
impairments that are subject to little or no prejudice--LP), and 0.023
for men with handicaps (i.e., impairments subject to greater
prejudice--MP). Baldwin and Johnson (2000) find returns to education for
the non-disabled, the LP impairments, and the MP impairments to equal
0.045, 0.044, and 0.053, finding a difference only for the latter,
disabled group. These three papers generally find that workers with
disabilities have somewhat lower estimated wage returns to education.
Note, however, that a study using more recent data (Hotchkiss 2003, pp.
65-6), finds that those with disabilities experience higher wage returns
to education. (11) Additionally, DeLeire (2001), using 1993 data, finds
that workers with disabilities experience a 9.3% return to education.
(12) These two studies indicate that education may serve as a wage
buffer for workers with disabilities.
3. Our Contribution to This Literature
Our research contributes to this empirical debate in three
important ways. First and most importantly, we address disability
heterogeneity as influenced by age of disability onset. We provide
estimates of the returns to education for those with early-onset
disability separate from those with late disability onset and thus are
able to address two issues: (i) potential endogeneity of educational
investment arising as a result of early disability onset and (ii)
possible differential abilities to achieve job matches with
accommodating employment positions. According to Loprest and Maag (2003,
p. 26), workers with late-onset disability may benefit more from
return-to-work and work incentive approaches, while those with
early-onset disability may be most helped by assistance in formal
education completion.
Second, we exploit the availability of self-reported
productivity-relevant functional limitations to control for
heterogeneity that exists for all workers, not just the
"officially" disabled. Analyses of the labor market outcomes
for individuals with poor health or disability must acknowledge the
heterogeneity of this population with respect to health status.
Considerable variation exists in type of impairment, severity of
condition, age at onset, prognosis for recovery, and access to health
care resources.
Finally, we improve on the econometrics used in previous estimates
of returns to education for the disabled. We use an endogenous switching
model with a trinomial switching mechanism, thereby producing more
refined estimates of the differential returns to education by disability
status and age of onset. The next section of this paper summarizes the
empirical model we implement, including the "full," or most
appropriate, econometric specification. Then we describe our data and
discuss the results from our estimation, and, finally, we conclude with
a summary of our findings.
4. Empirical Specification of the Wage Equation in the Presence of
Multiple Types of Selection
The empirical work is based on the standard human capital wage
equation, as developed by Mincer (1974). We develop our estimating
equation by modifying the Mincer equation step by step. The wage
equation, written out below, relates the calculated wage (constructed by
dividing earnings on the primary job by hours on the primary job) to
years of formal education, demographic control variables, controls for
the three broad categories of activity limitations, job characteristic
variables, and regional controls. The wage is included in its natural
logarithmic form so that the resulting estimated coefficients are more
easily interpretable as percentage returns to education.
Equations 1-3 present a linear estimable specification of this
basic model estimated separately by disability status:
ln [W.sub.Ni] = [[alpha].sub.1] + [[beta].sub.11] [X.sub.Ni] +
[[beta].sub.11] [S.sub.Ni] + [[epsilon].sub.1i] (1)
ln [W.sub.Ei] = [[alpha].sub.2] + [[beta].sub.21] [X.sub.Ei] +
[[beta].sub.22] [S.sub.Ei] + [[epsilon].sub.2i] (2)
ln [W.sub.Li] = [[alpha].sub.3] + [[beta].sub.31] [X.sub.Li] +
[[beta].sub.32] [S.sub.Li] + [[epsilon].sub.3i], (3)
where [W.sub.i] = hourly wage of individual i; [X.sub.i] = vector
of characteristics describing individual i that are thought to be
related to wages; [N.sub.i] indicates that individual i has no
disability; [E.sub.i] indicates that individual i has early-onset
disability; [L.sub.i] indicates that individual i has a later-onset
disability; [S.sub.i] = years of education that have been completed by
individual i, or three education spline measures; (13) and
[[epsilon].sub.1i], [[epsilon].sub.2i], and [[epsilon].sub.3i] =
standard error terms.
The parameters of most interest are [[beta].sub.12],
[[beta].sub.22], and [[beta].sub.32]. Comparing these three estimated
returns to education will tell us whether or not returns to education
vary by disability status. Unfortunately, there are several econometric
complexities that influence these coefficients arising from unobserved
heterogeneity by disability status. Equations 1-3 assume orthogonality between the regressors and the error term, but unobserved heterogeneity
bias may confound the differential estimated returns. If individuals
with disabilities face greater barriers to access to education or
employment, for example, then those individuals with disabilities who
are in the labor force, employed, or have high educational attainment
may be the most motivated and thus have higher wages.
A relatively high opportunity cost of labor force participation
because of attractive non-earned income alternatives may also bias the
return to education for individuals with disabilities. The presence of
non-earned income will dampen labor force participation and,
consequently, employment. Individuals with disabilities have transfer
income opportunities from Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and,
arguably, worker's compensation. SSI has experienced accelerated
growth in beneficiaries over the last couple of decades, indicating that
take-up rates are growing. The presence of such an alternative increases
the likelihood that eligible individuals who are in the labor force and
working have relatively lucrative wage opportunities because those with
less lucrative wage opportunities choose to not work and receive public
benefits. (14)
Finally, our estimation relies on self-reported health status and
disability measures. It is likely that the age of onset of disability
plays a role in educational attainment creating heterogeneity even
within the disabled population. For example, those with childhood
disability onset may be the most able to create a fully accommodating
lifestyle and achieve more productive job matches. However, for these
individuals, educational choices (including quality of that education)
may be constrained by disability status. Thus, in addition to a focus on
differential returns to education by disability status, we also focus on
age of disability onset in our regressions using the individual's
self-reported age of onset.
The declaration of such disability indicators may be a source of
measurement error and heterogeneity. If an individual's health
condition is not observable by the data collector, then the respondent has a choice to make about whether to report the condition. (15)
Generally speaking, there are no incentives or disincentives in a
national survey like SIPP to influence reporting behavior
systematically, but the individual may still misreport.
To isolate unbiased education returns requires some attention to
these sources of unobserved heterogeneity. We address potential
employment heterogeneity through the standard technique of estimating a
preliminary employment equation in order to construct an Inverse Mills
Ratio (IMR) term that will serve as a statistical correction when
estimating wage equations only for those individuals with observed wages
(i.e., for those currently working) (Heckman 1974). This correction is
particularly important for our analyses because of the possible
differential importance of education in employment selection for those
with and without disabilities (see Neal 2002). Additionally, we estimate
regressions that distinguish between early versus late onset of
disability, another potential source of heterogeneity. (16)
Our empirical work relies on the following specification of the
employment probit model, in which the continuous latent variable [p.sup.*.sub.i] (reflecting preferences for paid work) is expressed as
the observed discrete employment outcome:
[EMP.sub.i] = 1 if [p.sup.*.sub.1] > 0 = 0 otherwise, (4)
where [p.sup.*.sub.i] = [a.sub.2] = + [C.sub.1]' [Y.sub.i] +
[C.sub.2][S.sub.i] + [u.sub.Ei]; [EMP.sub.i] = 1 if individual i
participates in the labor force and has positive earnings/wages, and
equals 0 otherwise; [Y.sub.i] = vector of characteristics describing i
that are thought to be related to labor force participation; [a.sub.2],
[C.sub.1], [C.sub.2] = parameters to be estimated by probit; and
[u.sub.Ei] = standard error term. We then use the predicted IMR, which
we denote as [[??].sub.i] for each observation in the sample of workers.
(17)
The second important source of endogeneity arises from stratifying
the full sample into three groups: those without disabilities, those
with early-onset disability, and those with late-onset disability.
Stratifying the samples in this way is a reasonable approach to test for
structural differences in employment and wage behavior. However, as
noted earlier, reporting a disability may be endogenous. A robust
estimation strategy is to explicitly model the presence of a
(self-reported) disability. We implement this strategy by using the
early-onset or late-onset disability status indicators as endogenous
switching mechanisms. We treat them as endogenous because the
probability of self-reporting disability is itself an outcome determined
by both personal characteristics and state characteristics. The
explanatory variables that we use to explain and identify disability
status are state-level variables reflecting variations in the take-up
rate of SSI disability benefits, industrial accident rates, physicians
per capita, and smoking rates.
The precise model is a two-step endogenous switching regression
model analogous to that described by Maddala (1983). The underlying
switching mechanism is determined by a trivariate disability reporting
model. For empirical convenience, we will estimate the disability
reporting model by conditional logit. (18) In Equation 5,
[d.sup.*.sub.ij] will be a latent variable describing the propensity of
individual i to report status j, where j = early disability onset, late
disability onset, or non-disability and [D.sub.ij] is the observed
status.
[D.sub.ij] = j if [d.sup.*.sub.ij] > [d.sup.*.sub.ik], for all k
[not equal to] = j, (5)
where [d.sup.*.sub.ij] = [[gamma].sub.j][Z.sub.ij] + [u.sub.ij],
[Z.sub.ij] = vector of characteristics describing i that are thought to
be related to the likelihood of reporting status j; [[gamma].sub.j] =
vector of parameters to be estimated by logit; [u.sub.ij] = error term;
[Z.sub.ij] = vector of characteristics describing i that are thought to
be related to the likelihood of reporting status j; [[gamma].sub.j] =
vector of parameters to be estimated by logit; and [u.sub.ij] = error
term. Assuming that the [u.sub.ij] are independent and identically
distributed with a Weibull distribution, then
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (6)
and the gamma parameters can be estimated by a maximum likelihood
logit model. (19)
Because the errors in the disability reporting equations are
correlated with the errors in the wage Equations 1-3, following
Maddala's terminology, we refer to the model as a switching
regression model with endogenous switching. Generalizing on
Maddala's specification, Equations 1'-3' present the
switching wage regressions above that include a "correction"
term in each to adjust for the endogenous stratification on reported
disability status as well as the employment selection correction term.
ln [W.sub.Ni] = [[alpha].sub.1] + [[beta].sub.11] [X.sub.Ni] +
[[beta].sub.12] [S.sub.Ni] + [b.sub.13][[??].sub.i] +
[b.sub.14][[??].sub.Ni] + [e.sub.Ni] (1')
ln [W.sub.Ei] = [[alpha].sub.2] + [[beta].sub.21] [X.sub.Ei] +
[[beta].sub.22] [S.sub.Ei] + [b.sub.23][[??].sub.i] +
[b.sub.24][[??].sub.Ei] + [e.sub.Ei] (2')
ln [W.sub.Li] = [[alpha].sub.3] + [[beta].sub.31] [X.sub.Li] +
[[beta].sub.32] [S.sub.Li] + [b.sub.33][[??].sub.i] +
[b.sub.34][[??].sub.Li] + [e.sub.Li], (3')
where [[??].sub.ki] = [[??].sup.*.sub.ki]ln ([[??].sub.ki])/(1 -
[[??].sub.ki]), k = N, E, L, and [[??].sub.ki] = predicted probability
[D.sub.ij] = k from Equation 6. Estimation of Equations 1'-3'
yields consistent parameter estimates. The disability selection term
should resolve the potential negative correlation between education and
disability status, particularly for those with late-onset disability.
(20)
5. Summary of Estimation Strategy
We approach the problem of differentiating the returns to education
between individuals with and without disabilities using the econometric
model shown in Equations 1'-3'. Note that this model utilizes
two generated regressors produced via estimation of Equations 4 and 6.
In addition, the above estimation is implemented with two different
measures of education: a continuous years of education measure and then
a piecewise representation of years of education: min(yrseduc,12);
max[0, min(yrseduc - 12, 4)]; max(0, yrseduc - 16). We label those three
variables as years of elementary and secondary education, years of
college, and years beyond the baccalaureate, respectively. This
alternative set of education regressors produces estimates of marginal
effects differentiated by three levels of education. This sort of
education spline has the advantage of producing marginal effects that
incorporate the degree effect noted by Hungerford and Solon (1987). (21)
Our empirical specification does not incorporate three modeling
extensions that have appeared in the recent returns to education
literature. First, we ignore any systematic unobserved heterogeneity in
education across the disabled and non-disabled population. Our data do
not include reasonable correlates for education that are not related to
wages for use in a corrective instrumental variable (IV) procedure, and
potential state-level data instruments performed poorly in preliminary
runs. While it is convenient to assume away the education selectivity,
we recognize the sizeable returns to education literature that attempts
to compensate for the fact that investment in human capital is an
endogenously determined outcome that is correlated with unobserved
ability, so its direct inclusion as a right-hand side regressor can be
problematic. Somewhat reassuringly, Card (2000) finds that IV estimates
of education returns are relatively imprecise, but still at least as
large (and sometimes much larger) than non-IV estimates. This alleviates
concern that the non-IV approaches overestimate the returns to
education. (22) Note also that one significant factor contributing to
potential endogeneity of education is the age of disability onset. We do
incorporate this factor in our empirical analyses.
Card (2000) also discusses the issue of modeling unobserved
heterogeneity (across all individuals) in wage equations; in other
words, the use of panel data techniques. He states that, "Since
people with a higher return to education have an incentive to acquire
more schooling, a cross-sectional regression of earnings on schooling is
likely to yield an upward-biased estimate of the average marginal return
to schooling ..." (p. 9). Our estimation relies on cross-sectional
data, and so our results will likely be overestimates of the returns to
education. While the SIPP data are available in a panel, we rely on a
single wave in our estimation because of the difficulties inherent in
incorporating panel data methods with a switching mechanism (disability
status) that does not vary much over the course of the panel.
Additionally, the SIPP information regarding age of onset and health
condition details is not available longitudinally. As our focus is on
relative estimates of wage returns to education, with proper modeling of
heterogeneity by disability status and age of onset, our findings do not
suffer substantively from problems due to the lack of panel data. (23)
6. Data Description
We use data from the 1993 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program
Participation. The SIPP data come from the third interview of the 1993
Panel (called wave 3) that covers the time period from September through
December 1993. These data contain detailed disability status measures
that were designed to be consistent with the ADA 1990 definition of
disability. To retain comparability with previous research, we define
disability status using the self-reported response to the question
concerning work-limiting conditions. (24) However, as is done in Baldwin
and Johnson (2000), we include information regarding a broad list of
limitations in daily activities and other functional disabilities as
control variables in the wage regressions because of their potential
productivity-related effects.
To obtain information on the age of disability onset, we merge our
1993 Panel wave 3 data with relevant survey responses from wave 2 data
of the same panel. Specifically, the age of onset of disability
information is obtained from part A of the wave 2 topical module on the
topic of work disability history. For those individuals reporting a
work-limiting condition, the following question was asked: "When
did ... become limited in the kind or amount of work that ... could do
at a job?" Three responses were possible: the exact month/year of
onset; an indicator that "person was limited before person became
of working age"; and an indicator that "person became limited
after retiring." Using this information, we constructed two
measures of age of onset: early onset and late onset. Early onset
includes all those with onset at or before age 25 years. Using this age
cutoff means that individuals in our late-onset sample likely completed
their human capital investment prior to disability onset, alleviating
concerns about educational investments being influenced by disability
status. (25)
We restrict our SIPP data to include only individuals aged 25 to 62
years in order to minimize problems associated with modeling formal
human capital investment decisions or retirement decisions, both of
which are decisions made jointly with the employment choice. We present
variable means stratified by employment status and disability status
(broken down by age of onset) in Table 1. Our data include 9048
non-disabled employed men; 1663 non-disabled, not-employed men; 601 men
with disabilities who work; and 760 men with disabilities who are not
currently working. (26) Of the full estimation sample, approximately 12%
report having a health condition/disability that limits work. (27) In
the sample of 1361 individuals reporting disabilities, 21.6% report
early onset and 72.4% report late onset of disabilities. (28) This
results in 294 individuals in the sample reporting early-onset
disability and 1067 reporting late onset. Note that the sample size for
workers with early-onset disability is small, a concern that will be
reflected later in the strength of the empirical results. For
individuals who report a specific age of disability onset, the average
age of onset is 45.3 years, very similar to that reported by Burkhauser,
Butler, and Weathers (2002).
Considering first the demographic characteristics, Table 1 shows
that individuals with early-onset disability are somewhat younger than
the non-disabled, while those with late onset of disability are
considerably older, reflecting the fact that disability probabilities
rise with age. Individuals with disabilities achieve lower average
educational attainment (even those with late onset). Twenty-six percent
of the sample of employed individuals with early-onset disability report
less than high school education (vs. just 17% for the late-onset group),
while twice as many of the employed late-onset group report greater than
a college education (15% vs. 7%). As might be expected, individuals with
early-onset disability are considerably less likely to be married. The
role of race is somewhat complex. Fourteen percent of the sample of
non-disabled workers is nonwhite, but the percentage of nonwhite that
are not employed rises to 21%, consistent with national non-employment
rates being higher for nonwhites. This pattern is repeated for the
early- and late-onset samples, but it is more extreme for the former:
while only 4% of the working sample is nonwhite, 30% of the nonworking
sample is nonwhite.
For the non-disabled, non-workers report higher non-labor income
than workers (likely resulting from higher wages from spouses), while
those with early-onset disability report nearly equal incomes by
employment status, and for those with late-onset disability, the workers
report higher non-labor income. Finally, individuals with disabilities
(regardless of employment status or age of onset) tend to have fewer
children, on average.
Considering the aggregate figures for each of the six subsamples,
84.5% of the non-disabled males are working for pay, with the employment
rates considerably lower for the two groups reporting disabilities: 51%
for early onset and 42% for late onset. The fact that fewer than half of
those reporting late-onset disability are employed probably reflects the
greater incentives to report a disability for those nearing retirement
age. Average hourly wages vary substantially by disability status, with
the non-disabled earning $14.32 an hour, workers with early-onset
disability earning $9.18 an hour, and those with late-onset earning
$12.20 an hour. These wage differences represent a 36% wage disadvantage
for individuals with early-onset disability and a 15% wage disadvantage
for those with late onset. Reported work hours also vary by disability
status, although not by as much, in percentage terms, as the wage
differences. Non-disabled workers work on average 45.1 hours per week,
while the early- and late-onset groups report 40.5 and 41.7 hours per
week, respectively. (29)
Following Baldwin and Johnson (1994, 2000), we exploit the
availability in the SIPP of detailed health-related work productivity
measures. In addition to chronic conditions and self-reported
work-limiting disabilities, the topical module available with our wave
of the 1993 SIPP contains detailed information that encompasses three
categories of health and functional limitations: limitations in
activities of daily living (ADLs), such as bathing, dressing, or eating;
limitations in instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), such as
going outside the home, preparing meals, or doing housework; and other
functional limitations, such as difficulties in seeing, hearing, or
climbing stairs. (30) While Baldwin and Johnson (2000) rely on a
complicated method for constructing these three measures, we rely on a
more straightforward approach of simply adding up the occurrences to
construct three count measures as additional regressors in the wage
equations. This simplification should not have much impact on our
estimates of the returns to education, particularly since Baldwin and
Johnson's estimates find little statistical significance for these
measures' estimated coefficients. (31)
As would be expected, the mean numbers of limitations on ADLs,
limitations on IADLs, and other functional limitations for men with
disabilities exceed considerably the mean numbers for non-disabled
males. Furthermore, among all men with disabilities, the means for
non-workers are considerably higher than those for workers.
Interestingly, those in the group with early onset of disability who are
employed have a higher incidence of ADLs and functional limitations than
do the corresponding employed group for those with late-onset
disability.
7. Estimation Results
Estimates of the returns to education by disability status from the
switching wage regressions are presented in Table 2. First-stage estimation results of employment selection (Eqn. 4) and of disability
reporting regime (Eqn. 5) can be found in Appendix Tables A1 and A2,
respectively. As discussed previously, our definition of disability
relies on an affirmative response to whether the survey respondent has a
health condition that limits her/his ability to work. Entries in the
tables are coefficients from regressions on constructed hourly wages in
logarithmic form, so they may be interpreted as percentage effects. The
other independent variables in the wage regressions control for other
demographic and human capital characteristics, as well as the selection
terms. (32)
As seen in Table 2, workers with early-onset disability appear to
have no statistically significant return to education. This may be the
result of the failure of special education programs to prepare these
individuals for employment, or possibly it may simply reflect the small
sample sizes. (33) The former explanation is consistent with Kruse
(1997), who suggests that lower returns to education partially explains
lower employment rates for those with disabilities. The story is very
different for individuals who experience late disability onset. These
workers enjoy very high returns to education, much higher than those of
non-disabled workers (21.1% vs. 10.2%). Focusing on the education spline
measures reveals that workers with no disabilities experience an
approximate 9-11% return to education, with no evidence that more
advanced degrees carry greater degree effects. For those with late-onset
disability, the "kick" for an additional year of pre-college
or post-baccalaureate education is the greatest, at approximately
24-25%. Overall, our estimates of the returns to education for those
with late-onset disability imply that earlier findings of high returns
for workers with disabilities (e.g., DeLeire 2001) may have been driven
by the high percentage of the samples comprising workers with late-onset
disability.
The full set of coefficients for the wage equations estimated using
the endogenous switching model are also seen in Table 2. Overall, the
coefficient results vary considerably across disability status,
indicating the importance of permitting the full set of coefficients to
vary. Many of the wage equation regressors impact wages in the expected
way: marital status, age, and living in a metropolitan area are related
positively to wages. For men with late-onset disability, the male
marriage wage premium is substantially larger than that for the
non-disabled (approximately 80-83% vs. 40-42%), indicating some
combination of the following two explanations: (i) the ability to
specialize in market work might be particularly advantageous for men
with disabilities; or (ii) only the most productive men with
disabilities marry. Being an enrolled student depresses wages, possibly
as a result of its likely correlation with part-time employment.
Nonwhite race/ ethnicity and residing in the South also reduce wage
rates.
Despite the fairly high incidence of functional limitations for
those with disabilities, not many of these measures are statistically
significant. Note, however, that even with the small sample, workers
with early-onset disability do suffer reduced wages for two of the three
measures, although the statistical power is weak. Recall that Baldwin
and Johnson (2000) found little explanatory power for these measures.
8. Conclusions
Our findings provide evidence concerning the role of educational
investments for individuals with disabilities. The most notable finding
is in the importance of examining returns to education by age of
disability onset. Estimates focusing on workers with early-onset
disability show that education may not have a wage advantage for these
individuals. On the other hand, our estimates indicate very large
returns to education for individuals whose disability onset was past the
age of 25 years. An interpretation of these results is that the quality
and quantity of education received by individuals who are disabled at
the time of their educational decisions (i.e., those with early onset)
are not serving them well in terms of finding productive job matches.
This could be caused by increased severity of disabilities; by
programmatic approaches that are emphasizing employment over skill
development; or by low-quality special educational services. Of course,
the small sample size for this group may be responsible for the lack of
precision in the education returns estimates.
The handsome returns to education for disabled men whose disability
had a later onset highlight the insurance value of formal education.
These individuals gained general skills and knowledge during their
education that allowed them to continue to earn higher wages once
becoming disabled. The policy implication is that education has an
important insurance value, in addition to its labor market returns, and
this insurance value extends beyond just the risk of job loss, for
example, to the risk of becoming disabled. The relative magnitude of our
estimates for the late-onset population compared to those of the
non-disabled yields a rough estimate of the size of this insurance
value.
At a minimum, our findings indicate that age of onset is an
important factor to consider when identifying which services are best
suited to particular individuals with disabilities. Additionally, given
the possibility that the quality of early education is an issue for
those with early-onset disability, we modify the policy recommendation
of Loprest and Maag (2003) to include not just a focus on education
completion but also increased attention to the type of that education,
particularly its skill-enhancement component. Of course, this suggestion
carries with it the caveat that the small sample size may have played a
substantial role in the lack of statistical significance in most of the
wage equation regressors, including the education measures.
Individuals with late-onset disabilities do appear to benefit from
formal education, perhaps because higher education improves one's
ability to change jobs to achieve a better job match with an
accommodating employer. To the extent that education may serve to lessen the negative employment effects of disability, the education buffer
appears to be more effective for those with late-onset disabilities
(see, for example, Daly and Bound 1996). Additionally, it may be the
case that vocational rehabilitation services (unobserved in our data),
typically targeted toward this group, are most beneficial for those with
higher levels of education. Interpretation of the high returns to
education for those with late-onset disability must be considered in the
context of a substantial wage gap between the populations with and
without disabilities. The average wages of individuals with poor health
or disability, regardless of age of disability onset, are below those of
the non-disabled. Thus, while the positive returns to education for
workers with late-onset disability indicate that education may serve as
a buffer to protect against potential negative wage effects of becoming
disabled, this education "insurance" is not sufficient to
close the gap.
As a final note, the reader will recall our earlier discussion of
three potential limitations to our empirical approach: no IV estimation
to address endogeneity of schooling, no panel data methods, and no
explicit modeling of the simultaneity between health and education. Our
research focus is on the estimate of the returns to education for those
with disabilities relative to those of the non-disabled. Because we have
incorporated econometric extensions critical to producing reliable
relative estimates, we feel our conclusions do not suffer from these
omissions. However, to the extent that concerns associated with the
potential endogeneity of schooling may be more serious for workers with
early-onset disability, we suggest that future research address this
endogeneity.
Appendix A1
Coefficients from Employment Probit Model
(Standard Errors in Parentheses)
Employment Probit
Variable Coefficients
Intercept 1.714 (0.280)
Age 0.092 * (0.013)
[Age.sup.2] (scaled in 00s) 0.139 * (0.015)
Non-white 0.310 * (0.046)
Marital status 0.507 * (0.039)
South 0.090 * (0.034)
Metro 0.132 * (0.037)
Education 0.090 * (0.006)
Enrollment 0.671 * (0.071)
Adjusted family income (scaled in 0000s) 0.280 * (0.067)
Number of children in the household aged 0-17 years 0.019 (0.015)
* Significant at the 0.01 level.
Appendix A2
Coefficients from Disability Reporting Logit
Model (Standard Errors in Parentheses)
Early-Onset Late-Onset
Disability Logit Disability Logit
Variable Coefficient Coefficient
Intercept 0.604 (1.630) -4.854 *** (1.042)
Age 0.068 * (0.056) 0.141 *** (0.035)
[Age.sup.2] (scaled in 00s) 0.094 (0.068) -0.073 * (0.038)
Non-white 0.155 (0.199) 0.144 (0.109)
Marital status -1.466 *** (0.156) -0.659 *** (0.089)
South 0.088 (0.179) -0.225 ** (0.103)
Metro 0.149 (0.152) -0.163 ** (0.085)
Education 0.241 *** (0.023) -0.177 *** (0.012)
Enrollment 0.661 ** (0.0275) 0.529 *** (0.203)
Adjusted family income
(in 0000s) 0.556 (0.275) 0.252 (0.156)
Number of children in the 0.121 * (0.070) 0.063 * (0.035)
household aged 0-17 years
Smoking 0.011 (0.040) 0.033 (0.023)
Per capita physicians 0.004 (0.007) -0.008 ** (0.004)
Accident 0.010 (0.012) 0.009 (0.007)
SSI 7.337 (55.179) 37.730 (30.861)
* Significant at the 0.10 level.
** Significant at the 0.05 level.
*** Significant at the 0.01 level.
Received June 2003; accepted January 2007.
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(1) For recent analyses of the complex issues involved in
determining the impact of ADA, see DeLeire (2000), Kruse and Schur
(2003a), Schwochau and Blanck (2003), and Hotchkiss (2004).
(2) See Barnow (1996) for a detailed description of public policies
focusing on employment and training for individuals with disabilities.
(3) See, for example, Burkhauser and Daly (1996), Yelin and
Cisternas (1996), and Stapleton and Burkhauser (2003).
(4) See Kruse and Schur (2003b) for a discussion of disability
definitions.
(5) For a comprehensive discussion of this issue, see Acemoglu and
Angrist (2001), Hotchkiss (2003), and the collected papers included in
Stapleton and Burkhauser (2003).
(6) These Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) data are for the
cohort born between 1931 and 1941 and interviewed in 1992.
(7) Loprest and Maag (2003) define disability based on the presence
of activity and functional limitations (p. 6). Additionally, their
sample is near retirement age, thereby producing a sample with a
relatively high percentage of late-onset disabled.
(8) See Oi (1996) for further details concerning work and benefits
for the diverse disabled population.
(9) With regard to monitoring the effects of ADA, Kruse and Schur
(2003b) explain that there is no single data set that plots labor market
outcomes over time for the population affected by ADA, in part because
"eligibility" is evolving over time and partially because of
the difficulties inherent in determining the relevant population.
Additionally, self-identification as "disabled" is not stable
over time.
(10) Further literature important to this area includes Bound,
Schoenbaum, and Waidmann (1995), who study race and education
differences for men in disability status and labor force attachment, as
well as time of disability onset, and Loprest, Rupp, and Sandell (1995),
who focus on sex differences. Both papers also show that access to and
choice of occupation are important determinants of outcome differences.
(11) Hendricks, Schiro-Geist, and Broadbent (1997) study the
importance of a broader array of human capital investments (including
university education and rehabilitation services) and find that both
serve to mitigate employment-outcome disparities.
(12) DeLeire's (2001) definition of disabled includes those
who self-report a work-limiting condition as well as those with
functional limitations. The estimate cited in text is not statistically
significant.
(13) In addition to this continuous measure of years of education,
the estimation will be repeated Using instead three distinct piecewise
education measures explained later in text. Reliance on the continuous
education measure relies on the assumption of a constant returns to
education for each year of additional education, an assumption not
always supported by empirical evidence (see, for example, Hungerford and
Solon 1987).
(14) See Bound and Burkhauser (1999) and Haveman and Wolfe (2000)
for in-depth discussions of the relationship between disability policies
and labor market behavior for the disabled.
(15) This will be the case for most surveys. For example, if the
data are collected by telephone or if a single respondent provides
information for a family or household, the individuals who are
collecting the information will be unaware of poor health or
disabilities. Furthermore, a health condition or disability may be
internal and unseen, even when the data collector is interacting
personally with the individual.
(16) The selection on employment may be particularly important for
early onsetters, who are more likely to receive disability benefits.
According to Loprest and Maag (2003), early onsetters' lower
employment rates are due primarily to this benefit receipt.
(17) Variables that are included in the estimation of employment
but not wages, thus helping to identify it, include adjusted family
income and number of children in the household.
(18) This procedure replicates the empirical work in Dubin and
McFadden (1984). See Lee (1983) for the theoretical justification for
using a logit model in a heckit-type selection correction model. that
distinguish between early versus late onset of disability, another
potential source of heterogeneity. (16)
(19) Estimation of the model normalizes one of the gamma vectors to
zero.
(20) It is likely that much of late-onset disability affects
lesser-skilled workers (as a result of a higher risk of on-the-job
injury), so that the age of onset and education are potentially
negatively correlated. Were this correlation not addressed via our
selection mechanism, our estimates might overstate the returns to
education for the late-onset group.
(21) Estimated coefficients produced with these education splines
are simple to interpret. As an example, if the estimated coefficient
associated with the second spline is equal to 0.10, this implies that
each extra year of education beyond high school generates a 10% wage
return.
(22) Also see Griliches (1977) for further details on the
econometric difficulties inherent in estimating returns to education.
(23) There is also a strand of the health/education literature that
examines the positive correlation of education and health outcomes.
Berger and Leigh (1989) conclude that the direct effect of schooling on
health is more important than the effect of unobservables jointly on
both outcomes.
(24) We also experimented with an alternative, more broadly
defined, disability measure that combines the self-reported assessment
measure with other more-specific types of disability or poor health. Our
overall empirical results were not altered by the use of this
alternative measure and so are not reported in text or tables. See Kruse
and Schur (2003b) for a detailed discussion of disability definitions.
Also, we attempted to replicate the disability definitions used by
Baldwin and Johnson (2000) that rely on self-reports of specific health
conditions to construct two measures of disability based on the relative
visibility of the disability (and thus the likely existence of
discrimination), but we were unable to do so because of an insufficient
number of disabled defined this way. According to O'Hara at the
Census Bureau (during a 2001 phone conversation with one of the
authors), this sample size problem occurs because of fundamental changes
in sample design implemented following the 1990 SIPP panel.
(25) Loprest and Maag's (2003) analyses of age of onset uses
age 22 as the cutoff'. We prefer the later age for the reason
stated in the text.
(26) The rightmost columns of the table do not include 137
observations in which the individual self-reported a disability but for
which age of onset or functional limitations could not be determined
because of missing data or no match between wave 2 and wave 3 of the
SIPP. Of these, 85 were employed and 52 were not employed.
(27) Weighted means are comparable. These percentages are quite
close to those reported by Kruse (1997), who also used later SIPP
panels, but are somewhat larger than what is reported by other
researchers using other data or earlier panels of the SIPP. We thank
Douglas Kruse for his assistance in assuring the accuracy of our data.
(28) This compares nicely to Loprest and Maag's (2003) finding
of 16.3% reporting onset prior to age 22 years and to the findings of
Burkhauser and Daly (1996), who report that 70% of individuals with
disabilities report onset during the working years.
(29) These mean hours are consistent with the mean weekly hours
calculated from the outgoing rotation group of the 1993 Current
Population Survey (CPS). The CPS mean for male workers is 40.98, and
this sample does not include salaried workers who are likely to work
longer hours. Additionally, the CPS mean is for the primary job only,
while the SIPP mean reflects usual weekly hours, which includes hours
from multiple jobs.
(30) See Pezzin and Schone (1999) for an example of an application
of the IADL and ADL disability measures. Included in the ADL list are
activities associated with bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, getting
in and out of bed, and preparing meals. Included in the IADL list are
activities related to housecleaning, using the telephone, keeping track
of money and bills, climbing a flight of stairs, lifting, walking,
climbing, and getting around inside and outside the house. Other
functional limitations include seeing, hearing, speaking, and using an
aid to get around. We thank Anthony LoSasso for his expertise in
dividing the broad list of functional limitations into the three
subcategories.
(31) All estimation was repeated using a second, more broadly
defined disability measure that includes the self-report on disability
status plus many additional medical conditions. The empirical findings
were not substantively affected by this alternative definition.
Additionally, we include the three measures of activities limitations.
However, as a result of potential concerns about endogeneity or
appropriateness, we repeated the estimation without these three measures
and found no substantive difference in results. These results are
available from the authors on request.
(32) The first stage regressions on employment include sex, age,
age-squared, minority status, marital status, presence of children,
region, years of education, current student status, and monthly family
income excluding own earnings.
(33) Alternative (simpler) specifications did produce some
statistically significant education effects for individuals with
early-onset disabilities. The first specification was a single wage
equation that included dummy variables for early onset and late onset,
plus these dummies interacted with the education measures. The second
specification had wage equations estimated separately by disability
status (early and then late onset), but this endogenous stratification
was not corrected. Estimation results from these specifications are
available from the authors.
Kevin Hollenbeck * and Jean Kimmel ([dagger])
* W. E. Upjohn Institute, 300 South Westnedge Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI
49007, USA; E-mail Hollenbeck@ upjohninstitute.org.
([dagger]) Department of Economics, Western Michigan University,
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-4023, USA; E-mail Jean.Kimmel@wmich.edu;
corresponding author.
This paper is a substantially revised version of a paper that was
first presented at the January 2001 ASSA meetings held in New Orleans,
Louisiana, and then circulated as Upjohn Institute Working Paper No.
01-72. The authors thank our discussant, Robert Haveman, for his
excellent suggestions; Andrew Houtenville for generous assistance with
the disability literature; Doug Kruse for input and data assistance
above and beyond the call of duty; and Noyna DebBurman, Jason Preuss,
and Yuanlei Zhu for their skillful research assistance. Additionally, we
are very appreciative to Claire Black and Sue Berkebile for their superb
assistance in preparation of the manuscript. Finally, we thank our
journal editor plus two anonymous journal referees.
Table 1. Variable Means (Standard Deviation in Parentheses)
Non-Disabled
Employed Not Employed
Number of observations 9048 1663
Demographic characteristics
Age 39.84 (9.6) 42.11 (11.7)
Education 13.48 (2.8) 12.69 (3.0)
Non-white 0.14 (0.3) 0.21 (0.4)
Number of children aged 0-6 years 0.39 (0.7) 0.30 (0.7)
Number of children aged 7-17 years 0.58 (0.9) 0.46 (0.9)
Marital status 0.70 (0.5) 0.56 (0.5)
Number of children 0.96 (1.2) 0.76 (1.2)
Monthly family income, excluding $1897.57 $2090.75
own earnings (2390.7) (2443.05)
Activity limitations
Activities of daily living
(ADL) limitations 0.00 (0.1) 0.01 (0.2)
Instrumental ADL limitations 0.02 (0.2) 0.05 (0.4)
Functional limitations
Regional characteristics 0.06 (0.3) 0.08 (0.3)
Live in metro area 0.77 (0.4) 0.76 (0.4)
South 0.34 (0.5) 0.30 (0.5)
Job characteristics
Hourly wage $14.32 (9.1) --
Weekly hours 45.1 (11.0) --
Educational categories
Less than 12 years 0.12 (0.3) 0.24 (0.4)
High school (12 years) 0.36 (0.5) 0.34 (0.5)
Some college (13-15 years) 0.22 (0.4) 0.21 (0.4)
College or higher (16+ years) 0.30 (0.5) 0.21 (0.4)
Early-Onset Disabled
Employed Not Employed
Number of observations 149 145
Demographic characteristics
Age 37.17 (9.0) 39.31 (10.5)
Education 12.31 (2.2) 10.66 (3.1)
Non-white 0.04 (0.2) 0.30 (0.5)
Number of children aged 0-6 years 0.22 (0.5) 0.23 (0.7)
Number of children aged 7-17 years 0.34 (0.7) 0.36 (0.9)
Marital status 0.38 (0.5) 0.23 (0.4)
Number of children 0.56 (0.9) 0.59 (1.2)
Monthly family income, excluding $1734.68 $1798.48
own earnings (1973.3) (1602.3)
Activity limitations
Activities of daily living
(ADL) limitations 0.23 (0.8) 0.69 (1.4)
Instrumental ADL limitations 0.60 (1.3) 1.89 (2.2)
Functional limitations
Regional characteristics 0.39 (0.6) 0.69 (0.9)
Live in metro area 0.75 (1.3) 0.72 (0.4)
South 0.29 (0.6) 0.43 (0.5)
Job characteristics
Hourly wage $9.18 (7.3) --
Weekly hours 40.5 (12.7) --
Educational categories
Less than 12 years 0.26 (0.4) 0.45 (0.5)
High school (12 years) 0.42 (0.5) 0.42 (0.5)
Some college (13-15 years) 0.25 (0.4) 0.09 (0.3)
College or higher (16+ years) 0.07 (0.3) 0.04 (0.2)
Late-Onset Disabled
Employed Not Employed
Number of observations 452 615
Demographic characteristics
Age 44.92 (9.7) 48.79 (9.7)
Education 12.63 (2.5) 11.03 (3.0)
Non-white 0.11 (0.3) 0.21 (0.4)
Number of children aged 0-6 years 0.30 (0.6) 0.20 (0.6)
Number of children aged 7-17 years 0.58 (0.9) 0.43 (0.9)
Marital status 0.71 (0.5) 0.58 (0.5)
Number of children 0.88 (1.1) 0.62 (1.2)
Monthly family income, excluding $2094.27 $1811.35
own earnings (2383.1) (1675.2)
Activity limitations
Activities of daily living
(ADL) limitations 0.18 (0.7) 0.69 (1.4)
Instrumental ADL limitations 0.67 (1.2) 2.21 (2.1)
Functional limitations
Regional characteristics 0.28 (0.6) 0.66 (0.9)
Live in metro area 0.73 (0.4) 0.68 (0.5)
South 0.34 (0.5) 0.37 (0.5)
Job characteristics
Hourly wage $12.20 (9.1) --
Weekly hours 41.7 (12.0) --
Educational categories
Less than 12 years 0.17 (0.4) 0.45 (0.5)
High school (12 years) 0.44 (0.5) 0.35 (0.5)
Some college (13-15 years) 0.24 (0.4) 0.13 (0.3)
College or higher (16+ years) 0.15 (0.4) 0.07 (0.3)
Table 2. Coefficients from Wage Regressions
(Standard Errors in Parentheses)
Late-Onset
Variable Non-Disability Disability
Years of schooling 0.102*** (0.005) 0.211*** (0.041)
Years of elementary/secondary
schooling -- --
Years of college -- --
Years of post-baccalaureate -- --
Age 0.161 *** (0.010) 0.097 ** (0.048)
[Age.sup.2] (scaled in 00s) 0.202 *** (0.013) 0.163 *** (0.053)
Non-white 0.420 *** (0.029) 0.346 ** (0.134)
Married 0.415 *** (0.028) 0.803 *** (0.181)
South 0.024 ** (0.014) 0.139 ** (0.065)
Metro 0.240 *** (0.015) 0.358 *** (0.082)
Number of children in the
household aged 0-17 years 0.016 *** (0.006) 0.062 ** (0.031)
Enrollment 0.677 *** (0.052) 0.729 *** (0.240)
Activities of daily living
(ADL) limitations 0.020 (0.066) 0.020 (0.052)
Instrumental ADL limitations 0.016 (0.029) 0.024 (0.031)
Functional limitations 0.035 (0.22) 0.028 (0.052)
Intercept 2.967 *** (0.253) 1.618 (1.552)
Disability reporting mills 0.478 *** (0.067) 0.202 * (0.106)
Employment mills 2.876 *** (0.206) 2.062 *** (0.608)
Adjusted [R.sup.2] (n) 0.2768 (8169) 0.2940 (402)
Early-Onset
Variable Disability Non-Disability
Years of schooling 0.039 (0.099) --
Years of elementary/secondary
schooling -- 0.094 *** (0.009)
Years of college -- 0.100 *** (0.006)
Years of post-baccalaureate -- 0.110 *** (0.011)
Age 0.165 * (0.089) 0.161 *** (0.010)
[Age.sup.2] (scaled in 00s) -0.212 (0.130) 0.202 *** (0.013)
Non-white -0.603 (0.441) 0.418 *** (0.029)
Married -0.155 (0.612) 0.404 *** (0.029)
South -0.174 (0.133) 0.025 ** (0.014)
Metro 0.002 (0.143) 0.236 *** (0.015)
Number of children in the
household aged 0-17 years 0.029 (0.098) 0.017 *** (0.006)
Enrollment -0.815 (0.553) 0.670 *** (0.052)
Activities of daily living
(ADL) limitations -0.213 (0.106) 0.021 (0.066)
Instrumental ADL limitations 0.093 (0.071) 0.018 (0.029)
Functional limitations -0.095 (0.090) 0.034 (0.022)
Intercept -3.675 (2.707) 2.861 *** (0.267)
Disability reporting mills -0.203 (0.223) 0.508 *** (0.072)
Employment mills 1.629 (1.542) 2.874 *** (0.206)
Adjusted [R.sup.2] (n) 0.3530 (136) 0.2767 (8169)
Late-Onset Early-Onset
Variable Disability Disability
Years of schooling -- --
Years of elementary/secondary
schooling 0.234 *** (0.046) 0.009 (0.119)
Years of college 0.184 *** (0.046) 0.055 (0.112)
Years of post-baccalaureate 0.246 ** (0.080) 0.032 (0.198)
Age 0.111 ** (0.050) 0.149 (0.096)
[Age.sup.2] (scaled in 00s) 0.179 *** (0.055) -0.190 (0.139)
Non-white 0.365 *** (0.136) -0.555 (0.458)
Married 0.827 *** (0.182) -0.176 (0.621)
South 0.124 * (0.067) -0.191 (0.140)
Metro 0.362 *** (0.082) -0.005 (0.146)
Number of children in the
household aged 0-17 years 0.063 ** (0.031) 0.037 (0.100)
Enrollment 0.747 *** (0.244) -0.749 (0.575)
Activities of daily living
(ADL) limitations 0.017 (0.052) -0.213 (0.108)
Instrumental ADL limitations 0.022 (0.031) 0.094 (0.072)
Functional limitations 0.026 (0.052) -0.098 (0.092)
Intercept 2.406 (1.706) -2.934 (3.148)
Disability reporting mills 0.180 ** (0.107) -0.193 (0.227)
Employment mills 2.276 *** (0.643) 1.365 (1652)
Adjusted [R.sup.2] (n) 0.2936 (402) 0.3421 (136)
Samples restricted to individuals aged 25-62 years with wages.
Entries are coefficients from OLS regressions of log wages.
* Significant at 0. 10 level.
** Significant at 0.05 level.
*** Significant at 0.01 level.