Losses from a Disability: Temporal Variety and Earnings in the Long Run

Daniel Hamermesh

No 35417, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using diaries covering 25-61-year-olds in the American Time Use Survey 2009-24, this study demonstrates that temporal variety—doing more different things in a day—is income superior. Linking these data to underlying Current Population Surveys, propensity-score models show that people stating that they have a mobility/physical disability in each of two consecutive annual surveys undertake almost 4 percent fewer activities per day than other, demographically identical individuals. They also earn about 50 percent less. Combining the estimated impact of income on temporal variety with the implied reductions in variety incurred by those with the disability yields a monetary equivalent of lost variety exceeding that of lost earnings. Measuring disability status only once yields much smaller estimated shortfalls in temporal variety and earnings. That suggests that one-time self-reports of disabilities, which underlie the bulk of studies on the impacts of disabilities on earnings, also underestimate long-term effects.

JEL-codes: J22 K13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07
Note: LS
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w35417.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35417

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w35417
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().