Job Mobility among Workers with Disabilities

Using data from the 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation, this paper examines both the mobility patterns of workers with disabilities and the wage effects of job changes by observing workers' within-firm and across-firm job changes over a 20-month period. There is no difference in the probability of internal (within-firm) job changes between workers with and without disabilities. Workers with disabilities, however, are slightly more likely to leave their current employer than are workers without disabilities. Examining the reasons for job changes, we find that disabled workers are significantly more likely to be discharged than nondisabled workers. While the overall wage growth for workers with disabilities is lower than that for nondisabled workers, there is little or no evidence that the wage changes associated with job changes are different for workers with disabilities. These findings are consistent with theories that disabled workers change jobs more frequently than nondisabled workers because of a greater incidence of job mismatch among workers with disabilities, or because of discrimination against disabled workers in job terminations.