We invite you to a FAIR Seminar with Gordon Dahl. Gordon B. Dahl is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego. His articles have appeared in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Title: Work from Home and Disability Employment
Abstract: There has been a dramatic rise in disability employment in the US since the pandemic, a pattern mirrored in other countries as well. A similar increase is not found for any other major gender, race, age or education demographic. At the same time, work from home has risen four-fold. This paper asks whether the two are causally related. Analyzing CPS and ACS microdata, we find the increase in disability employment is concentrated in occupations with high levels of working from home. Controlling for compositional changes and labor market tightness, we estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in work from home increases full-time employment by 1.1% for individuals with a physical disability. A back of the envelope calculation reveals that the post pandemic increase in working from home explains 80% of the rise in full-time employment. Wage data suggests that WFH increased the supply of disability employees, potentially by reducing the commuting and amenity costs of employment.