Dependent Coverage and Parental "Job Lock": Evidence from the Affordable Care Act

Coverage for dependents is a common feature of employer-sponsored insurance. While prior work shows that employees trade off job mobility for their own coverage, there is less evidence on the intra-family spillovers of dependent coverage onto parental labor supply. We study this question using a panel of insurance claims that links de- pendent insurance enrollment with a proxy for parental job retention. We develop a regression discontinuity design that exploits variation in coverage eligibility by dependent birth date from the Affordable Care Act, and find that a one percent increase in the dependent enrollment likelihood leads to a 0.2 percent increase in parental job retention. Job lock induced by dependent coverage is greater for parents who were more likely to be on the margin of a job exit, for families who value dependent coverage more, and for employees of firms with a wider range of insurance options.