Determinants of Labor Market Outcomes of Disabled Men Before and after the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

Abstract

The study compares the labor market experience of men with disabilities before and after the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The handful of studies that have focused on the wage impact of disabilities have either not fully incorporated the probability of employment into the analysis or have not correctly decomposed the wage differences in light of selectivity corrections. After estimating a two-stage model of the probability of employment followed by a wage equation for men with and without disabilities, I use Newman and Oaxaca's (2004) method to correctly decompose the distributions. In addition, I also perform a similar analysis to explain the differentials in employment rates between the non-disabled and disabled. The analyzes are performed for samples before and after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The results from studies of the Survey of Income Program Participation (SIPP) of 1984, 1990, 1996 and 2001 indicate that the employment and wage gaps between the disabled and the non-disabled have risen sharply over time, both before and after the passage of the ADA. Most of the rise prior to the ADA was attributable to arise in differences that cannot be explained with measurable factors. Nearly all of the rise in the gaps in the 1990s, however, is attributable to factors that can be measured. The unexplained differential has held relatively constant during that period.