Estimating the Relationship between Employer-Provided Health Insurance, Worker Mobility, and Wages

In this paper, a joint model of wages, hazard of a job ending, and probability of holding employer-provided health insurance is estimated, taking account of unobservable person and job characteristics. A unique data source, the 1990 and 1996 SIPP Panels linked to SSA administrative job histories, enables the identification of random person and job effects and the correlation of these effects across the three equations. The explicit modeling of this correlation produces consistent estimates of the effect of tenure on wages and the effect of health insurance on mobility. Substantial levels of job-lock and significant annual returns to seniority are found. Increasing the job-specific probability of obtaining employerprovided health insurance from 60% to 63%, or increasing the job-specific hourly wage rate by $.80, are both associated with an equivalent decrease in the hazard of the job ending. However, the dollar value of the wage benefit is substantially higher.