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Yin N and Heiland F

Availability of Data
Data used in this study are from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement
Study (HRS) and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).
They are publicly available at the data websites: http://hrsonline.isr.umich.edu/ and
http://www.share-project.org/.
Authors’ Contributions

Na Yin has contributed to the research question formulation, data analysis and
programming, and manuscript writing. Frank Heiland has contributed to manuscript
revision.
Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Sanders Korenman, Selcuk Eren, the Editor and the
anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

Appendix A

OECD Countries’ Disability Programs: Benefit Structures and Policy
Lessons

Many OECD countries have long used partial disability benefits as a way to encourage
people to remain in work, or to return to employment. Most countries with such
systems, including some Nordic (Finland, Norway, and Sweden), western (Germany,
the Netherlands, and Switzerland), and central and eastern European countries (Czech
Republic, Greece, and Hungary), and Korea, offer a full benefit to those assessed to
be fully unable to work and various degrees of partial benefits consistent with reduced
work capacity. Most countries offer one to four levels of partial benefits, while some
use a finer grid (e.g. in 5% intervals for work capacity reduction of 50%–94% in
Norway). Partial work capacity is defined in different ways across countries, for
example, in terms of the number of hours a person is permitted to work (Germany and
Sweden) or in relation to the remaining percentage of work/earnings capacity.
Other countries, including France, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, have a quasi-partial
benefit for people who are unable to work in their usual occupation and a full benefit
only for those unable to work in any occupation. Hence, the capacity threshold is the
same for both benefits but the reference is different. The partial benefit is allowed
to be supplemented to some extent by earnings from a job in another occupation.
Luxembourg has a similar quasi-partial benefit system but the scheme is somewhat
more generous where the full benefit eligibility is measured against former occupation
and the partial benefit eligibility is gauged with respect to the last workplace.
Not all the OECD countries have partial benefits in their main disability program.
Some countries offer a full benefit to individuals who have fully or partially lost
work capacity, such as Australia, Austria, Belgium, New Zealand, Mexico, Slovak
Republic, and Turkey. These systems award full benefits to individuals with earnings
capacity reduced below a certain threshold, such as 50% in Austria and Mexico, 66%
in Belgium, and 40% in Slovak Republic and Turkey, or a threshold defined by the
number of hours a person can still work, as in Australia and New Zealand.
Other countries that do not have partial benefits in the main disability program,
e.g., Canada, Denmark (after 2003), Italy, Japan, and United Kingdom, adopt a very
strict disability definition, one similar to that in the U.S. disability benefits system.
However, unlike the U.S., these countries usually have a universal sickness program
as a precursor to the long-term disability program and also more alternative public
programs to match their disability program. For example, while the Italian disability
pension scheme only awards full benefits to people totally unable to work (those with
100% total and permanent incapacity to perform any work), there is a means-tested
disability allowance that compensates partial work-capacity loss.

International Journal of Population Studies 2017, Volume 3, Issue 1 61