Income Security Policy Paper No. 7
The Importance of Employer Accommodation on
the Job Duration of Workers with Disabilities:
A Hazard Model Approach
Richard V. Burkhauser, J. S. Butler, and Yang Woo Kim
December 1992
Abstract: In line with policies long in place in Western
Europe, United States disability policy is now
attempting to intervene directly in the labor
market to increase the employment of people
with disabilities. Beginning in July 1992, the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
required employers to provide reasonable
accommodation to workers with disabilities.
This paper uses a continuous time hazard model
on retrospective data from the 1978 Social
Security Survey of Disability and Work to
estimate the effect of employer accommodation
on the subsequent job tenure of workers who
suffer a work limiting health impairment. It
shows that the risk of leaving one's employer
is significantly influenced both by
accommodation and by the Social Security
Disability Insurance replacement rate.
Accommodation appears to be as important as a
worker's expected replacement rate in
influencing his risk of job exit.
A revised of this paper was published
in Labour Economics, 3(1)(June
1995): 1-22. Those interested in this work
should see that journal.
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Security Policy Paper Series
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