TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bound,John
AU  - Schoenbaum,Michael
AU  - Waidmann,Timothy
TI  - Race Differences in Labor Force Attachment and Disability Status
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5536
PY  - 1996
Y2  - April 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5536
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5536.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John Bound
Department of Economics
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220
Tel: 734/998-7149
Fax: 734/998-7415
E-Mail: jbound@umich.edu

Timothy Waidmann
The Urban Institute
E-Mail: twaidman@ui.urban.org
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1996-11-01
AB  - We use the first wave of the Health and Retirement Survey to study the effect of health on the labor force activity of Black and White men and women in their 50s.  The evidence we present confirms the notion that health is an extremely important determinant of early labor force exit.  Our estimates suggest that health differences between Blacks and Whites can account for most of the racial gap in labor force attachment for men.  For women, where participation rates are comparable, our estimates imply that Black women would be substantially more likely to work than White women were it not for the marked health differences.  We also find for both men and women that poor health has a substantially larger effect on labor force behavior for Blacks.  The evidence suggests that these differences result from Black/White differences in access to the resources necessary to retire.
ER  -