Volume 36, Number 1 (Winter) 2001
DeLeire, Thomas. 2001. "Changes in Wage Discrimination Against People with Disabilities: 1984-93." Journal of Human Resources 36(1):144-158.
A group of health-impaired workers who self-report in the Survey of the Income and Program Participation that their productivity is not affected by their impairment is used to separately measure the effects of discrimination from the effects of poor health on earnings in 1984 and 1993. The results indicate that, in 1984,only 3.7 percentage points of the earnings gap is due to discrimination and the amount of discrimination did not decrease by 1993. Although discrimination did not change over the 1984 to 1993 period, the negative effects of poor health on the earnings of people with disabilities fell substantially.
Thomas DeLeire is an Assistant Professor in the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago. The author thanks Joe Altonji, Gary Becker, Jay Bhattacharya, Doug Kruse, Erzo Luttmer, Will Manning, Paul Oyer, Tomas Philipson, Craig Thornton, two anonymous referees, and workshop participants at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago for useful conversations and comments. The author takes full responsibility for all errors. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning June 2001 through May 2004 from Thomas DeLeire, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, 1155 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637, E-mail: t-deleire@u-chicago.edu .
© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X