Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
5102064 | Labour Economics | 2016 | 8 Pages |
Abstract
A concern with requiring employers to provide health insurance to full-time employees is that employers may increase their use of part-time workers to circumvent the mandate. In this paper, we study the effect of the employer mandate in the Massachusetts health insurance reform on part-time work using a difference-in-differences strategy that compares changes in part-time work in Massachusetts after the reform to changes in various control groups. We find strong evidence that the Massachusetts employer mandate increased part-time employment among low-educated workers and some evidence that it increased part-time employment among younger workers. Our estimate of a 1.7 percentage point increase in part-time employment among workers without a college degree suggests that lower-skilled workers may be vulnerable to having their hours cut so that employers do not have to offer them health insurance.
Keywords
Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities
Economics, Econometrics and Finance
Economics and Econometrics
Authors
Marcus O. Dillender, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Susan N. Houseman,