Author: Hamilton, Darrick ; Darrity, William ; Goldsmith, Arthur
Working Paper : Racial and Ethnic Composition of Firms and Disparities in Firm Provisions of Health Insurance Coverage (PDF) ; March 2005
Abstract:
It is well documented that black, Latino and immigrant
groups are less likely to be insured than whites
even after accounting for a wide range of factors.* Part
of these insurance discrepancies can be explained
by the socioeconomic positioning of these groups,
such as the under-representation of certain groups
within the higher insured managerial and professional
occupations. However, even within occupational
categories, the uninsurance rates for blacks, Latinos
and immigrants exceed that of their white and native-born
peers, suggesting that actions across firms may
be a source of their low insurance coverage rates. Using
data drawn from the employer sample of the Multi-City
Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI),
this study offers and finds evidence in support
of a new explanation for this disparity, namely
that firms with predominantly black and/or Latino
workforces (black and Latino firms)
are less likely to offer health insurance than
comparable firms with predominantly white workforces
(white firms).
There are a myriad of explanations why comparable black and Latino firms offer less coverage than white firms. Among the possible explanations are (1) higher premiums faced by firms to cover workers from non-white groups, (2) lower profitability of these non-white firms, (3) lower collective bargaining power to negotiate health insurance coverage for workers at firms that employ relatively more black and Latino employees, (4) lower demand for coverage from predominantly black and Latino workforces, and, lastly, (5) workers employed at firms with large shares of non-white workers may be more susceptible to labor market discrimination and as a result be offered less insurance coverage. In addition to determining that non-white firms are less likely to offer coverage than comparable white firms, this study discusses the plausibility of the five explanations listed above for the relative under-coverage of non-white firms .
*
See Crow,
Harrington, and McLaughlin (2002) for a survey
of what is known about the link between race, ethnicity,
immigrant status and insurance coverage. They report
that the uninsurance rate is 9.38 for whites, 17.47
percent for blacks, 22.10 percent for Latinos,
and 31.64 percent for immigrants. |
