DO HEALTH-INSURANCE AND PENSION COSTS REDUCE THE JOB OPPORTUNITIES OFOLDER WORKERS

Using a 1991 nationwide survey of employers and 1979, 1983, 1988, and 1993 data from the Employee Benefits Supplement of the Current Populat ion Survey, the authors examine the effects of fringe benefit provisio n on the decision to hire older workers. They find that higher health insurance costs, in the presence of prohibitions against age discrimin ation and discrimination in the provision of fringe benefits, adversel y affected older workers' employment opportunities. In all five data s ets over a fourteen-year period, the probability that a new hire was a ged 55-64 was significantly lower in firms with health care plans than in those without, and was also significantly lower in firms with rela tively costly plans than in those with less costly plans. On the other hand, neither the cost nor the presence of a defined contribution or defined benefit pension plan significantly affected that probability.