Job Sorting for Employer Sponsored Insurance Offers: Do All Workers Have the Same Options?

Linda Blumberg, The Urban Institute
Maria Cancian, University of Wisconsin - Madison

This project explores a fundamental assumption implicit in economic analysis of health insurance coverage decisions: workers make strategic job choice decisions based upon an explicit trade-off between employer-sponsored health insurance and wages. Empirical evidence supports the general notion that job mobility is affected by concerns related to health insurance; however, we do not know the extent to which workers of different types have accessible opportunities for obtaining their preferred forms of compensation. We will use data from the February 2001 Current Population Survey to measure the relationship between specific labor markets and the probability of ESI offer. Goals of this research include (1) to determine which demographic and health groups and at highest risk to become simultaneously employed and uninsured, including both cross-sectional and longitudinal information on these groups. (2) To explore the extent to which adverse selection in health insurance markets distorts labor market choices for the employed uninsured in the context of a simple economic model. (3) To evaluate how well this model explains which groups become employed and uninsured.