Premium
Interpreting Wage Gaps of Disabled Men: The Roles of Productivity and of Discrimination
Author(s) -
Longhi Simonetta,
Nicoletti Cheti,
Platt Lucinda
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
southern economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 2325-8012
pISSN - 0038-4038
DOI - 10.4284/0038-4038-78.3.931
Subject(s) - wage , productivity , quantile , distribution (mathematics) , economics , labour economics , demographic economics , quantile regression , efficiency wage , econometrics , mathematics , economic growth , mathematical analysis
Using the UK Labour Force Survey, we study wage gaps for disabled men after the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act. We estimate wage gaps at the mean and at different quantiles of the wage distribution and decompose them into a part explained by differences in workers' and job characteristics, a part that can be ascribed to health‐related reduced productivity, and a residual part. The large original wage gaps reduce substantially when we control for differences in education and occupation, although significant residuals remain. However, when we isolate productivity differences between disabled and nondisabled workers, the residual wage gap becomes insignificant in most cases.