Predictors of Wages

Abstract

This paper examines the relative importance of type of impairment and gender in the prediction of wage income. Data come from the National Medical Expenditure Survey (NMES) conducted in 1987. The sample includes those people who worked at all during 1987 and is divided into four groups of workers with impairments (those with only a mobility impairment, only a hearing impairment, or only a visual impairment, and those who had any combination of visual, hearing, and mobility impairments) and the remaining group of workers in the general population. Results show that workers with two types of impairments actually earned more than their same-sex peers in the general population, but all groups of women earned less than their male peers. The stronger effect of being male than of any type of disability in predicting wage income was shown by regression equations which included several interaction terms. The results support the interpretation that the labor force treats workers with impairments similarly to their nonimpaired peers of the same sex. The difficulty of changing gender-based labor-force processes is discussed.