THE IMPACT OF HEALTH ON JOB MOBILITY - A MEASURE OF JOB LOCK

The author analyzes data from the National Medical Expenditure Survey of 1987 to measure the importance of ''job lock'' - the reduction in j ob mobility due to the non-portability of employer-provided health ins urance. Refining the approach commonly used by other researchers inves tigating the same question, the author finds insignificant estimates o f job lock; moreover, the confidence intervals of these estimates excl ude large levels of job lock. A replication of an influential previous study that used the same data source shows large and significant job lock, as did that study, but when methodological problems are correcte d and improved data are used to construct the job lock variables job l ock is found to be small and statistically insignificant.