The importance of employer accommodation on the job duration of workers with disabilities: A hazard model approach

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 requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to workers with disabilities. Here we use 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. We show 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.