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Although age discrimination laws boost employment of older workers, some are exempt from age-law protection and may be better protected by disability discrimination laws. Disability laws may raise the costs of employing the disabled, however, generating mixed predictions regarding employment effects of protection by both types of laws. This study finds that employment of older disabled workers with the coupled laws is lower than those with age-law protection only; employment of the younger disabled is higher with the coupled laws. For older disabled workers, earnings of those with the coupled laws are lower than their counterparts with only age-law protection. (JEL J78, K31, J00)
I. INTRODUCTION
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) was enacted in 1967 with the primary goals "to promote the employment of older persons based on their ability rather than age; to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment; to help employers and workers find ways of meeting problems arising from the impact of age on employment" (ADEA, 1967: 29 U.S.C. § 621 (b)). It is the subject of approximately 16,000 annual charge receipts with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), as well as substantial court litigation (EEOC, 2001).1 The limited empirical research on the impacts of the ADEA finds that it has positive effects on the employment of protected workers (Neumark and Stock, 1999; Adams, 2000). However, legal scholars have raised questions about the ability of the ADEA to protect older workers from employment discrimination and posit that some older workers may instead be better protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (Frier, 1993; Posner, 1995).
Frier (1993) notes that gaps in coverage of the ADEA based on bona fide occupational qualifications (BFOQs), and exceptions made for factors other than age exempt some older workers from protection under the ADEA (for example, an employer does not violate the ADEA if he discharges an employee on the basis of an age-related disability). These workers may be eligible for protection under disability discrimination laws, however, because some of the characteristics that often accompany age (e.g., frailty, mild cognitive impairment, or failing hearing or vision) may fall under the provisions of disability discrimination legislation that does not include a BFOQ exception but instead applies to any qualified individual with a disability. In...