What happens when the definition of disability changes? The case of obesity

Jennifer Bennett Shinall ()
Additional contact information
Jennifer Bennett Shinall: Vanderbilt University Law School

IZA Journal of Labor Economics, 2016, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-30

Abstract: Abstract This paper examines how Congress’s 2008 expansion of who is disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) impacts the labor market outcomes of newly covered individuals. Focusing on obese individuals, I exploit variation in coverage of obesity before and after the 2008 expansion to identify effects of the legal change, but I find no improvement in the labor market outcomes of the obese. Although the 2008 expansion was intended to remedy the unintended consequences of the ADA and improve labor market outcomes of the disabled, these early estimates suggest that the expansion has not yet achieved Congress’s stated goals. JEL codes: J14, J21, J78, K31

Keywords: ADA; Disability law; Obesity; Employment discrimination; Law in action (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s40172-016-0041-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:izalbr:v:5:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1186_s40172-016-0041-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40172

DOI: 10.1186/s40172-016-0041-0

Access Statistics for this article

IZA Journal of Labor Economics is currently edited by Joni Hersch and Pierre Cahuc

More articles in IZA Journal of Labor Economics from Springer, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().