Permanent Injury and the Disability-Mitigating Effects of Education

Bruce Cater (bcater@trentu.ca), Sohee Kang (soheekang@trentu.ca), Byron Lew (blew@trentu.ca) and Marco Pollanen (marcopollanen@trentu.ca)
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Bruce Cater: Trent University
Sohee Kang: University of Toronto
Byron Lew: Trent University
Marco Pollanen: Trent University

Economics Bulletin, 2013, vol. 33, issue 3, 2064-2079

Abstract: Using data from Ontario, we study the extent to which education mitigates the realized work-disabling effects of permanent occupational injury. Focusing first on the rates of post-injury employment, our results suggest that education has a strong disability-mitigating effect in cases of knee and shoulder injuries, but a smaller effect where workers have experienced permanent back or wrist/finger injuries. A comparison of pre- and post-injury occupations then reveals that education mitigates disability not so much by facilitating job shifting, but rather by enabling the individual to return to the pre-injury occupation. These latter results suggest that education may mitigate disability somewhat indirectly by facilitating the accumulation of occupation-specific human capital that, in turn, compensates for the effects of physical impairment.

Keywords: Permanent Impairment; Disability; Employment; Adaptation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I0 J0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-08-14
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