The Dynamics of Disability: Measuring and Monitoring Disability for Social Security Programs

TABLE 15 Employment Characteristics Among Persons with and Without Disabilities, with and Without Adjustments for Age and Gender, California, 1999

		Unadjusted		Age and Gender Adjusted
Employment Characteristic	All Persons	Without Disability	With Disability	Without Disability	With Disability
All-employed, age 18–64, n	1,220	1,099	121	—	—
Self-employed (percent)	13.6	13.2	17.4	15.1	18.3
Working day shift (percent)	77.5	77.9	73.6	79.8	73.6
Flexible hours (percent)	55.2	55.6	52.1	55.5	52.8
Work at home all the time (percent)	5.9	5.4	9.9^a	6.3	10.2
Contingent employment (percent)^b	10.7	10.5	13.2	9.8	12.7
Not permanent job (percent)	8.8	8.6	9.9	8.3	10.0
Temp agency employed (percent)	2.9	2.6	5.0	2.5	4.6
Job tenure (percent with years on job):
One year or less	24.2	23.5	30.6	—	—
>1 to 5 years	34.8	34.8	33.9	—	—
6 to 10 years	17.9	18.2	14.9	—	—
More than 10 years	22.9	23.1	20.7	—	—
Less than 5 years on job (percent)	53.1	52.4	59.5	45.9	56.8^a
Less than 1 year on job (percent)	19.3	18.7	24.8	15.7	24.2^a
Job tenure, mean	—	6.8	6.2	8.0	6.5^a
Psychological characteristics of jobs
Required to learn new things	89.5	88.9	94.2	89.1	94.6
Has little freedom to decide how to do work	25.2	25.2	24.8	23.9	24.9
Makes a lot of decisions on one’s own	82.0	82.0	82.6	83.4	83.0
Has enough time to get job done	77.5	77.8	75.2	76.8	74.6
Required to work very fast without breaks	43.0	43.4	38.8	42.6	38.9
High-demand, low-control job^c	14.7	14.9	11.6	11.7	14.6
^ap < .05. ^bContingent employment includes nonpermanent workers and temporary agency employees. ^cA job is considered to be high demand and low control if the respondent states that he or she has little freedom to decide how to do the job, and either does not have time to get the job done or is required to work very fast without breaks. SOURCE: Authors’ analyses of the California Work and Health Survey.

Table of Contents

Front Matter R1-R20

Summary 1-14

1. Introduction 15-32

2. Dynamics of SSA's Disability Programs 33-52

3. Conceptual Issues in Defining Work Disability 53-64

4. Survey Measurement of Disability 65-87

5. A Work Disability Monitoring System 88-112

6. Improving the Disability Decision Process 113-139

7. Enhancing SSA's Research Capacity 140-147

References 148-155

Acronyms and Abbreviations 156-158

Appendix A: Committee Meetings and Presenters of Testimony 159-160

Appendix B: Workshop Agendas and Presenters 161-169

Appendix C: Committee Recommendations 170-173

Biographical Sketches of Committee Members 174-178

Conceptual Issues in the Measurement of Work Disability 179-210

Methodological Issues in the Measurement of Work Disability 211-240

SSA's Disability Determination of Mental Impairments: A Review Toward an Agenda for Research 241-280

Survey Design Options for the Measurement of Persons with Work Disabilities 281-302

Persons with Disabilities and Demands of the Contemporary Labor Market 303-334

Index 335-348