Disability and the labour market: an analysis of British males

This paper attempts, using data from the British Labour Force Survey 1996, to examine to what extent differences in labour market outcomes between abl e-bodied and disabled men may be attributed to differences in endowments of human capital and associated productivity differences. Both labour force p articipation and selectivity corrected human capital equations are estimate d and decomposition techniques applied to them. Using the methodology of Ba ldwin and Johnson [Baldwin, M., Johnson, W.G., 1994. Labor market discrimin ation against men with disabilities. Journal of Human Resources, XXIX(1), W inter, 1-19], the employment effects of wage discrimination against the dis abled are also estimated. Evidence of both substantial wage and participati on rate differences between able-bodied and disabled men are found, which h ave implications for the operation of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Ac t. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: I1; J2; J3.