The Long-Term Impact of Health, Employment, and Marital Status Shocks: Evidence from Matched Administrative Data
People face a wide range of risks throughout the life course that can disrupt employment, reduce earnings, derail retirement planning, and impair economic well-being in later life. This paper measures the impact of health, employment, and marital status shocks on lifetime earnings. Using household survey data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation matched to administrative earnings records, we compared lifetime earnings for people who developed a health problem that limited the type or amount of work they could do, were laid off from their job, or became widowed, divorced or separated with those who did not experience these shocks.
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