Has Remote Work Improved Employment Outcomes for Older People with Disabilities?

Siyan Liu and Laura D. Quinby, Boston College

The shift to remote work following COVID may have improved job prospects for people with disabilities, as productivity-enhancing accommodations are often already present in the home and travel for work is limited or non-existent. SSA has an interest in this question because better employment outcomes could reduce the number of new DI applicants. However, identifying the impact of remote work has proved challenging in past studies for two reasons. First, the current tight labor market also benefits those with disabilities. Second, more workers are reporting a disability and their composition may have changed.

This project will overcome both these obstacles by using the 2018-2022 Health and Retirement Study to examine whether remote work has improved employment for people with disabilities, who might otherwise turn to DI. The analysis will first address the rising prevalence of disability by focusing on individuals who developed impairments prior to COVID, but who were not yet on DI. Then, it will use a difference-in-differences design to compare the employment status – before-and-after COVID – of individuals who benefit equally from the tight labor market, but whose primary occupation varies by how amenable it is to remote work.