The Role of Ethnicity in the Disability and Work Experience of Preretirement-Age Americans

Abstract

Using the 1992 HRS, this study examines the effects of social and demographic risk factors, including ethnicity, as well as health and job characteristics on disability and work status among 8,701 preretirement-age Americans with work history. Analytic results indicated that non-Anglo ethnicity was not a significant predictor of disability status but that being African American was a strong significant predictor of being a past versus current worker. The primary predictors of disability and work status were health behaviors, effects of health conditions, job characteristics, and workplace adaptations, factors that lend themselves to policy manipulation.