Gender, Disabilities, and Employment

This paper examines disabilities among older women and men and analyzes gender differences in the effect of disabilities on labor force participation. The paper uses information on men and women ages 51 to 61 from the early release of the first wave of the Health and Retirement Study. It demonstrates the usefulness of multiple measures of disabilities to document gender differences and to understand the connections between disabilities and work. We find that both men and women working in occupations with greater physical requirements exhibit higher rates of disabilities than other workers. We also find that functional limitations and health impairments have significant negative effects on labor force participation. The effects of disabilities on labor force participation are larger for men and single women than for married women.