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We use Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) data from the United States and Great Britain to investigate the association between adults’ health and the income inequality they experienced as children up to 80 years earlier. Our inequality data track shares of national income held by top income percentiles from the early 20th century. We average those data over the same early-life years and merge them to CNEF data from both countries that measure self-reported health of individuals between 1991 and 2007. Observationally, adult men and women in the United States and Great Britain less often report being in better health if inequality was higher in their first five years of life. Although the trend in inequality is similar in both countries over the past century, the empirical association between health and inequality in the United States differs substantially from the estimated relationship in Great Britain. When we control for demographic characteristics, measures of permanent income, and early-life socio-economic status, the health–inequality association remains robust only in the U.S. sample. For the British sample, the added controls drive the coefficient on inequality toward zero and statistical insignificance.

Using panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation linked to Social Security Administration disability determination records we trace the pattern of household income and the sources of that income from 38 months prior to 39 months following application for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI). We find that the average applicant’s labor earnings declines dramatically beginning six months before application but the average applicant’s household income drops much less dramatically both in the months just before or just after application and over the next three years, and does so even for those denied benefits. However, we also found substantial heterogeneity in household income outcomes in both the SSDI and SSI applicant population. Our quantile regressions suggest that higher income households experience greater percentage declines in their post-application income. Such results are consistent with the lower replacement rate for higher earners established in the SSDI program and the low absolute level of protection provided to all SSI applicants regardless of income prior to application.

Looks at US programmes for enabling individual disabled workers to be included into the workforce as these, sometimes highly‐qualified, people have been overlooked by organizations. Further states that there are 30 million disabled US adults, of whom only 25 per cent are employed. Promotes various programmes which are beneficial to both disabled workers and employees. Concludes that if the USA could employ, or better use, more of the 23 million out of the 30 million disabled Americans, their contribution could be significant to the US economy.

This paper shows how a shorter fecundity horizon for females (a biological constraint) leads to age and educational disparities between husbands and wives. Empirical support is based on data from a natural experiment commencing before and ending after China’s 1980 one-child law. The results indicate that fertility in China declined by about 1.2–1.4 births per woman as a result of China’s anti-natalist policies. Concomitantly spousal age and educational differences narrowed by approximately 0.5–1.0 and 1.0–1.6 years, respectively. These decreases in the typical husband’s age and educational advantages are important in explaining the division of labor in the home, often given as a cause for the gender wage gap. Indeed, as fertility declined, which has been the historical trend in most developed countries, husband-wife age and educational differences diminished leading to less division of labor in the home and a smaller gender wage disparity. Unlike other models of division of labor in the home which rely on innately endogenous factors, this paper’s theory is based on an exogenous biological constraint.

We propose that institutional actors do not just ceremonially comply with the cultural values in their environment, as institutional theorists have suggested. Instead, we argue that institutional actors can use conflicting cultural values as tools to further their interests and, in doing so, affect significant social problems and cause unanticipated changes in their core goals and policies. To present support for that proposition, we describe an epidemic of work disability that occurred in the Netherlands between 1967 and 1988. The epidemic is examined in light of conflicting Dutch cultural conceptions of the meaning of work and the meaning of economic security in the welfare state. The behavior of key institutional actors, including the government, medical institutions, employers, and labor unions, is examined to identify their roles in the epidemic. We assert that, by pursuing its own interests while upholding Dutch cultural values, each institutional actor produced conditions in which the work disability epidemic could occur.

To identify likely trends in American society and the economy and discuss their implications for the inclusion of people with disabilities in the paid workforce.

An overview of recent and likely future trends relevant to the workforce participation of Americans with disabilities.

While some trends in policy, technology, and culture are likely to promote wider participation by individuals with disabilities in paid employment, other factors in the emerging economy, labor markets, and workplaces may constrain such participation.

Uncertainty over future changes does not allow accurate forecasting of labor market trends for people with disabilities.

Many previous analyses have focused on developments within single arenas such as communications or transportation technology that might enable people with disabilities to participate more easily in paid employment. Our essay suggests the relevance of multiple contextual factors in shaping labor markets for potential workers with disabilities, but also identifies some likely constraints in expanding employment opportunities for people with disabilities.