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Title: Compensating Workers for On-the-Job Injury and Illness
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Woock, Christopher
Compensating Workers for On-the-Job Injury and Illness
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Kentucky, July 2006
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Disability; Disabled Workers; Family Income; Income Level; Injuries; Wage Dynamics; Wage Levels

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This dissertation examines the earnings losses and instability resulting from an on-the-job injury. A unique set of questions in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 that address "work related injury/illness," and its longitudinal structure permit a regression framework to compare the earnings and incomes of injured and uninjured workers over time. In addition to changes in levels, I also estimate the volatility of income for workplace injuries and work limiting disabilities.

Chapter 2 results indicate that injured men do not suffer significant initial earnings losses as a result of a workplace injury. A gradual decline in earnings in the years that follow the injury develops, from earnings about 8% less than the uninjured workers the year after injury to almost 16% less five years after injury, with no sign of recovery.

In Chapter 3, the annual earnings for the female injured workers in the year of injury are 9.7% less than the uninjured workers. Recovery is quick, as the earnings of the injured female workers return to levels similar to the uninjured workers in the years following injury. Restricting the sample to women who work fulltime results in substantial and persistent earnings losses following injury.

For married men in Chapter 4 there is some evidence that their annual family incomes are lower than the uninjured men in the years following injury. In contrast, there is no evidence of any significant relative losses in family income for injured married women. There is some evidence of an added worker effect for the injured men, as the wives experience increases in their annual earnings and annual hours worked. Likewise, for fulltime women there are large losses in total family income, tempered by an increase in the husbands' labor market efforts.

Finally, in Chapter 5 I find that while the volatility of total family income is relatively stable for all men, the volatility of family income without disability payments increases in the years following injury or first report of a disability. On the other hand, the volatility of total family income and income before disability payments are consistently stable for the female sample.

Bibliography Citation
Woock, Christopher. Compensating Workers for On-the-Job Injury and Illness. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Kentucky, July 2006.