IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lue/wpaper/161.html

The consequences of own and spousal disability on labor market outcomes and subjective well-being: Evidence from Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Nils Braakmann

    (Institute of Economics, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany)

Abstract

In this paper, I contrast the effects of individual and spousal disability on subjective wellbeing and labor supply using data on couples from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 1984 to 2006. I find that both men and women reduce their propensity to work when they or their partner become disabled. The effects of spousal disability are economically large. I find no evidence for hours and wage adjustments by spousal disability, although there are wage effects of individual disability. The life-satisfaction of women, but not of men, is reduced considerably by their partners’ disability. The effects are about 33 to 50% as large as those of individual disability. I also find no evidence that individuals adapt to their partners’ disability, although there is adaption to individual disability.

Suggested Citation

  • Nils Braakmann, 2010. "The consequences of own and spousal disability on labor market outcomes and subjective well-being: Evidence from Germany," Working Paper Series in Economics 161, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lue:wpaper:161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/WorkingPapers/lue/pdf/wp_161_Upload.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Riekhoff, Aart-Jan & Vaalavuo, Maria, 2021. "Health shocks and couples’ labor market participation: A turning point or stuck in the trajectory?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    3. Nicholas A. Jolly & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2023. "Health shocks and spousal labor supply: an international perspective," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 973-1004, April.
    4. Aitor Calo-Blanco, 2022. "Fairness and unequal productive skills among other-regarding individuals," Working Papers 22.06, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    5. Chiara Mussida & Dario Sciulli, 2022. "Disability and Material Deprivation: A Profile of Disadvantage in Italy," Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, vol. 130(2), pages 169-190.
    6. Aitor Calo-Blanco, 2017. "Health and fairness with other-regarding preferences," Working Papers 17.04, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    7. Aitor Calo-Blanco, 2020. "Health and fairness with other-regarding preferences," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 24(3), pages 123-141, December.
    8. Aitor Calo-Blanco, 2025. "Fairness with unequal productive skills among other-regarding individuals," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 23(1), pages 205-226, March.
    9. Zhao, Yuejun, 2023. "Job displacement and the mental health of households: Burden sharing counteracts spillover," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    10. Chiara Mussida & Dario Sciulli, 2024. "Poverty, work intensity, and disability: evidence from European countries," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 25(9), pages 1605-1624, December.
    11. Chiara Mussida & Dario Sciulli, 2019. "Does the Presence of a Disabled Person in the Household Affect the Employment Probabilities of Cohabiting Women? Evidence from Italy, France and the UK," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 338-351, September.
    12. Anand, Priyanka & Dague, Laura & Wagner, Kathryn L., 2022. "The role of paid family leave in labor supply responses to a spouse's disability or health shock," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    13. Di Meo, Giovanni & Eryilmaz, Onur, 2025. "The impacts of health shocks on household labor supply and domestic production," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    14. Chiara Mussida & Raffaella Patimo, 2021. "Women’s Family Care Responsibilities, Employment and Health: A Tale of Two Countries," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 489-507, September.
    15. De Gruyter, Elaine & Petrie, Dennis & Black, Nicole, 2023. "Household donations of time and money in response to a health shock," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 333(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lue:wpaper:161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Wagner The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Joachim Wagner to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://leuphana.de/institute/ivwl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.