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Cover -- Title -- Copyrights -- Contents -- Figures -- Preface -- 1: Health Care Coverage in the United States -- Three Behaviors of Firms before the ACA -- Four Ways in Which the ACA May Influence Firms -- Health Care Coverage Prior to Reform -- Need for Reform -- The Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- My Research and Data -- Structure of the Book -- 2: Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance -- The Costs and Benefits of Offering ESI -- Summary and Discussion -- 3: Benchmarking Change: Employer-Supported Insurance before the ACA -- Legislating to Increase ESI Coverage and Reduce ESI Disparities -- Firms' Behavior in the Prereform Period -- Summary and Discussion -- 4: How Large Firms Might Respond to the ACA -- The ACA and Increasing Costs -- Large Firms' Behavior as a Response to Increasing Costs -- Past Behavior and Potential Increased Health Care Costs -- Summary and Discussion -- 5: How Small Firms Might Respond to the ACA -- The ACA and Small Firms -- Small Firms That Did Not Offer ESI -- Small Firms That Offered ESI -- Summary and Discussion -- 6: Health Policy and Firm Behavior -- Analyzing Incentives for Firms to Offer ESI -- Firms' Prereform Behavior -- Three Characteristics of Employer-Sponsored Insurance in the Prereform Period -- Firms' Behavior after the ACA -- Beyond CHES: Postreform Considerations -- Appendix A: The California Health and Employment Surveys -- Appendix B: Factor Analysis -- Large Firms' Grouping of Benefits -- Large Firms' Strategies for Responding to Increased Health Care Costs -- Small Firms' Motivations for Not Offering ESI -- Small Firms' Strategies for Responding to Increased Health Care Costs -- Appendix C: Defining Empirical Constructs -- References -- Author -- Index -- About the Institute

This study argues that a multidimensional health benefit offer (i.e., offers of medical, dental, sick leave, or vision benefits) and the hours or tenure restrictions placed on it are affected by the relative demand for workers in the local labor market. Using the Bay Area Longitudinal Surveys (BALS), a database of low‐skilled jobs, we show that an excess labor demand for workers' skills increases the firm's offer of health benefits and reduces the restrictions on them, while an excess labor supply increases restrictions. These findings suggest that research assessing the correlation between wages, skills, and whether or not a firm offers health insurance might understate the plight of the low‐skilled worker since health care access may also be restricted by a failure to receive an array of health benefits and by the restrictions placed on the offer. Furthermore, public policies might place the issues of uninsurance of low‐wage workers within the context of a lack of marketable skills since low‐skilled workers might be able to enhance their ability to secure jobs that offer an array of health benefits if they acquire skills in short supply in the local labor market. (JEL J3)

This study addresses the question "Do school-to-work programs, as embodied by career academies, facilitate postsecondary education?" The author conceptualizes postsecondary education as a series of steps through the university and examines the high school career academy's influence on entrance into, route through, and outcomes from a 4-year university. Data are drawn from applicant and student records at a comprehensive, urban university for all individuals originating from a single district's high schools. The findings suggest that students from career academies have higher academic achievement upon leaving high school, less need for remediation in English at the university, and a 4-percentage-point increase in graduation from the university than students who are not from academies. These findings suggest that school-to-work programs could facilitate positive outcomes in postsecondary education. However, the continued high rates of remediation and the low rates of graduation, even for students from career academics, suggest that their influence might not be enough to ensure success in postsecondary education. This analysis therefore suggests that further research should identify program components that increase postsecondary education and determine how these components can be institutionalized and built on in subsequent reforms.

Abstract. Wage loss and reemployment following involuntary Job loss are examined, using a nationally representative sample of young men and women in their late twenties. Workers with increased human capital are less likely to suffer wage loss and unemployment after job termination. Workers characterized as having little commitment to the labor market—low skill levels, clerical and sales workers, females, and low contributors to family income—are more likely to suffer unemployment and wage loss after job loss. This suggests that human capital characteristics serve as a signal of desirable, or undesirable, worker traits to a new firm.

Analysis of annual Current Population Survey data from 1947 to 1985 reveals that industrial employment shifts had a greater impact on increasing income inequality than other economic or demographic influences, due primarily to the size of the shift. Increased dependency & occupational employment shifts also increased inequality over the period. While the effect of dependency on inequality was equivalent to that of the industrial employment impact, its smaller change led to a smaller overall effect. Most of the inequality increase was from bottom-to-top movement of income. Some of this increase was offset by increased government spending & within-component distributional shifts. 7 Tables, 49 References. HA

An examination of the relationship between economic returns to migration & gender & marital status, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey on a matched group of 522 M & 899 F migrants & a proportionate sample of nonmigrants. Results indicate that migration returns associate with marital status. Men separating from their wives & never-married women experience positive migration returns. Married women, as tied movers or stayers, have reduced earnings constrained by familial situations. Nonmigrating men separating from their wives, with reduced earnings, appear to be tied to a labor market. 4 Tables, 19 References. HA

Abstract. Using the older men's panel of the National Longitudinal Surveys (n = 5,000), path analysis and occupationally stratified samples, an empirical examination is made of the relative role of the human capital hypothesis and the structured labor market hypothesis in the determination of earnings. Results suggest that both hypotheses are useful in achieving an understanding of the process. There is a primary labor market (jobs with high wages, job security and mobility on promotional ladders) with individual productivity differences largely consequent from human capital differentials (investments in education, training and experience). There is also a secondary labor market (jobs with low wages, high turnover poor working conditions) in which human capital investments are not rewarded, dominated by structural influences (e.g. unionization) that, rather than individual productivity differences, explain the process by which earnings are determined.

This paper presents evidence that women from different population subgroups respond differently to economic and background influences when timing initial childbearing. Among all groups examined, age at first birth tends to increase as education levels increase, and married women with spouses present tend to be older than other women at first childbirth. Among whites, all economic influences considered–hourly pay rate, nonmarket income, and work during the year prior to childbearing–have a significant influence in deferring first childbirth, but family background does not. Among blacks, family background plays a significant role in determining age at first childbirth, but only one economic influence–the hourly pay rate–is significant. Blacks' response to family background is somewhat greater than their response to hourly pay rate. Race as a separate influence is significant among women age 20 years or under, but that influence disappears among older women. Because of their adverse economic consequences, adolescent pregnancies and unwed motherhood are of mounting concern. This study suggests that, contrary to popular belief, welfare programs do not foster early pregnancy nor do programs to reduce unemployment deter it. Educational achievement, however, serves as a deterrent to early pregnancy among all groups.

Based on data drawn from the older men's panel of the National Longitudinal Survey of Work Experience, 1966-81;interviews and reinterviews with a nationally representative sample of American men.

The proposition that labor market activities affect financial position & life satisfaction after retirement is supported based on interview data obtained in 1978 from about 5,000 Ms who had been retired at least one year (part of the larger National Longitudinal Surveys of Work Experience [Center for Human Resource Research, Columbus: Ohio State U, 1982]). It was found that life satisfaction was not related to the comparison of retirement to preretirement income but was related to the absolute level of retirement income. Thus, when retirement psychological well-being is of concern, "replacement ratios" are not appropriate measures. 3 Tables, 25 References. Modified HA