Disability Insurance: Error Rates and Gender Differences

Hamish Low and Luigi Pistaferri

Journal of Political Economy, 2025, vol. 133, issue 9, 2962 - 3018

Abstract: We show the extent of screening errors made in disability insurance awards using matched survey-administrative data. False rejections are widespread, with large gender differences. Work-disabled women are 12.8 percentage points more likely to be rejected than work-disabled men, controlling for health conditions, occupation, and demographics. Gender differences arise because women are assessed with more residual work capacity. We model the Social Security Administration (SSA) decision-making process and estimate that gender differences in screening errors originate from lower costs to the SSA from incorrectly rejecting women. Noise in self-reported work limitation leads to overstating screening errors, but the gender difference remains.

Date: 2025
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