Disability Transfers and the Labor Force Attachment of Older Men: Evidence from Historical Record

opinions and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy of the sponsoring institutions. The Institute's Discussion Paper Series is designed to describe and elicit comments on work in progress. Papers in the series should be considered working drafts. In this paper we use trends in self-reported disability from the late 1940s through the late 1980s to gauge the impact of the growth of income maintenance for the disabled on the labor force attachment of older working-aged men. Under the assumption that the actual health of these men has not changed, we can use the trends in self-reported disability to make inferences about the disincentive effects of disability insurance. Our tabulations suggest that the growth of these programs can explain up to 80 percent of the drop in labor force participation of 45-54 year old men during the 1970s but considerably less (as little as 28 percent) of the larger decline for older groups. I