Author: Yelowitz, Aaron
Working Paper: Medicaid and Work Decisions of Married Women (PDF) ; July 2003
Abstract:
There is relatively little evidence on the effect of health insurance on married
women's labor supply in the United States. The identification strategies of the studies that
exist tend to take the husband's characteristics as exogenous. This is potentially
problematic if husbands and wives make joint labor supply and job choice decisions. The
aim of this study is to fill this gap in the literature by using an arguably credible source of
legislative variation: expansions in the Medicaid program since the mid-1980s. The study
uses data from the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program
Participation, spanning the years 1987 to 2000. Preliminary evidence suggests the results
on married women’s responses is mixed: some specifications (that control for individual
heterogeneity) show significant, anticipated responses to the Medicaid expansions, while
other specifications do not. |
