IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/indrel/349.html

Labor Market Effects of Spinal Cord Injuries in the Dawn of the Computer Age

Author

Listed:
  • Alan B. Krueger

    (Princeton University)

  • Douglas Kruse

    (Rutgers University)

Abstract

What effect does a severe disability' have on individuals' employment and earnings? Has the computer revolution lessened the adverse labor market consequences of severe disabilities? This paper investigates the labor market effects of severe, traumatic disabilities resulting from spinal cord injuries (SCIs). We compare the employment experiences of a sample of individuals with SCIs to those of former co-workers over the same period, and to two random samples of individuals in New Jersey. The analysis is based in large part on a 1994 telephone survey of New Jersey adults who had SCIs within the past ten years. Results indicate that the occurrence of an SCI causes a steep decline in employment, hours worked, and weekly earnings, but relatively little change in wage rates for those who work. The computer revolution has the potential to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Our results indicate that having computer skills is associated with higher earnings, and a faster return to work and earnings recovery, for SCI individuals, after holding constant other variables such as education. There is no apparent earnings gap between SCI and non-SCI computer users, whereas among those who do not use computers at work the earnings of SCI employees lag behind those of non-SCI employees. Despite the benefits, individuals with SCIs are less likely to use computers than the general population.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan B. Krueger & Douglas Kruse, 1995. "Labor Market Effects of Spinal Cord Injuries in the Dawn of the Computer Age," Working Papers 728, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:indrel:349
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01q237hr94c/1/349.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. Alan B. Krueger & Douglas Kruse, 1995. "Labor Market Effects of Spinal Cord Injuries in the Dawn of the Computer Age," Working Papers 728, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Sarah Crichton & Steven Stillman & Dean Hyslop, 2011. "Returning to Work from Injury: Longitudinal Evidence on Employment and Earnings," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 64(4), pages 765-785, July.
    3. Robert T. Reville & Robert F. Schoeni, 2001. "Disability from Injuries at Work The Effects on Earnings and Employment," Working Papers DRU-2554, RAND Corporation.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Joshua D. Angrist, 2001. "Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 915-957, October.
    5. Rowell, David & Connelly, Luke, 2010. "Labour market outcomes for people with a spinal cord injury," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 223-232, July.
    6. Carina Furnee & Marius Kemler & Gerard A. Pfann, 2001. "The Value of Pain Relief," Working Papers 0111, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    7. Kevin F. Hallock & Xin Jin & Michael Waldman, 2022. "The total compensation gap, wage gap and benefit gap between workers with and without a disability," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 60(1), pages 3-31, March.
    8. Kerwin Kofi Charles, 2003. "The Longitudinal Structure of Earnings Losses among Work-Limited Disabled Workers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(3).
    9. Mason Ameri & Lisa Schur & Meera Adya & F. Scott Bentley & Patrick McKay & Douglas Kruse, 2018. "The Disability Employment Puzzle: A Field Experiment on Employer Hiring Behavior," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 71(2), pages 329-364, March.
    10. Douglas Kruse & Lisa Schur & Sean Rogers & Mason Ameri, 2018. "Why Do Workers with Disabilities Earn Less? Occupational Job Requirements and Disability Discrimination," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(4), pages 798-834, December.
    11. Maciej Albinowski & Iga Magda & Agata Rozszczypała, 2025. "The employment effects of the disability education gap in Europe," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(5), pages 686-699, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School

    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:pri:indrel:349. 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: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/irprius.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.