Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T16:48:33.117Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Vocational Rehabilitation and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from World War I Veterans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2021

Ethan Schmick Open the ORCID record for Ethan Schmick [Opens in a new window]
Ethan Schmick*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA
*
Email: ethan.schmick@marquette.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article uses a linked sample of World War I Army veterans from the state of Missouri to study the impact of vocational rehabilitation on labor market outcomes for men wounded and disabled during the war. Veterans’ military service abstracts are linked to the 1940 US Census and a subset are linked to rehabilitation records. This creates a new dataset that contains information on military service, rehabilitation, and labor market outcomes. I find that 70 percent of veterans that were both wounded in action and disabled when discharged from the army participated in the rehabilitation program. These same veterans had significantly better labor market outcomes, which can be attributed to the rehabilitation program under certain assumptions.

Keywords

VeteransLabor marketWorld War IVocational Rehabilitation
Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , Spring 2022 , pp. 119 - 142
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archival Sources

Chambers, C. F. (1919) “Facing the future Uncle Sam offers training to every man disabled in the service—see that your man takes it—ask the Red Cross.” Library of Congress.Google Scholar
FamilySearch (2020) “United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917–1940.” NARA microfilm publication 76193916. National Archives and Records Administration.Google Scholar
Missouri Digital Heritage (2020) “Soldiers’ Records: War of 1812–World War I.” Missouri State Archives.Google Scholar
The President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions (1956) “The Historical Development of Veterans’ Benefits in the United States.” Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Thurber, Evangeline (1944) “Preliminary checklist of the general administrative files of the rehabilitation division: Created under the Federal Board for Vocational Education (1918–21) and the United States Veterans’ Bureau (1921–28) and Received from the Veterans’ Administration.” National Archives.Google Scholar
Vocational Rehabilitation Act (1918) United States Statutes at Large. 40, 107.Google Scholar
War Risk Insurance Act (1917) United States Statutes at Large. 40, 105.Google Scholar

References

Abramitzky, Ran, Boustan, Leah Platt, and Katherine, Eriksson (2012) “Europe’s tired, poor, huddled masses: Self-selection and economic outcomes in the age of mass migration.” American Economic Review 102 (5): 1832–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Abramitzky, Ran, Boustan, Leah Platt, and Katherine, Eriksson (2014) “A nation of immigrants: Assimilation and economic outcomes in the age of mass migration.” Journal of Political Economy 122 (3): 467–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Abramitzky, Ran, Boustan, Leah Platt, and Katherine, Eriksson (2019a) “To the New World and back again: Return migrants in the age of mass migration.” ILR Review 72 (2): 300–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abramitzky, Ran, Boustan, Leah Platt, Eriksson, Katherine, Feigenbaum, James J., and Pérez, Santiago (2019b) “Automated linking of historical data.” Working Paper 25825, National Bureau of Economic Research, www.nber.org/papers/w25825. Accessed October 1, 2020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abramitzky, Ran, Mill, Roy, and Santiago, Pérez (2020) “Linking individuals across historical sources: A fully automated approach.” Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 53 (2): 94–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, and Joshua, Angrist (2000) “How large are human-capital externalities? Evidence from compulsory schooling laws.” NBER Macroeconomics Annual (15): 9–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Julie, and Perry, Heather R. (2014) “Rehabilitation and restoration: Orthopaedics and disabled soldiers in Germany and Britain in the First World War.” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 30 (4): 227–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Angrist, Joshua D. (1990) “Lifetime earnings and the Vietnam-era draft lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative records.” The American Economic Review 80 (3): 313–36.Google Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D. (1993) “The effect of veterans benefits on education and earnings.” ILR Review 46 (4): 637–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D., and Chen, Stacey H. (2011) “Schooling and the Vietnam-era GI bill: Evidence from the draft lottery.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 3 (2): 96–118.Google Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D., and Krueger, Alan B. (1994) “Why do World War II veterans earn more than nonveterans?” Journal of Labor Economics 12 (1): 74–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Autor, David H., Mark, Duggan, Kyle, Greenberg, and Lyle, David S. (2016) “The impact of disability benefits on labor supply: Evidence from the VA’s disability compensation program.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 8 (3): 31–68.Google Scholar
Bailey, Martha J. (2018) “Creating life-m: The longitudinal, intergenerational family electronic micro-database.” Working Paper 26227, National Bureau of Economic Research, www.nber.org/papers/w26227. Accessed October 1, 2020.Google Scholar
Bailey, Martha J., Connor, Cole, Morgan, Henderson, and Catherine, Massey (2020) “How well do automated linking methods perform? Lessons from US historical data.” Journal of Economic Literature 58 (4): 997–1044.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bedard, Kelly, and Olivier, Deschênes (2006) “The long-term impact of military service on health: Evidence from World War II and Korean War veterans.” American Economic Review 96 (1): 176–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blum, David A., and DeBruyne, Nese F. (2020) “American war and military operations casualties: Lists and statistics.” Congressional Research Service.Google Scholar
Bound, John, and Sarah, Turner (2002) “Going to war and going to college: Did World War II and the GI bill increase educational attainment for returning veterans?” Journal of Labor Economics 20 (4): 784–815.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Colin A., and Miller, Douglas L. (2015) “A practitioner’s guide to cluster-robust inference.” Journal of Human Resources 50 (2): 317–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carden-Coyne, Ana (2007) “Ungrateful bodies: Rehabilitation, resistance and disabled American veterans of the First World War.” European Review of History—Revue Européenne d’Histoire 14 (4): 543–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coile, Courtney, Mark, Duggan, and Audrey, Guo (2015) “Veterans’ labor force participation: What role does the VA’s disability compensation program play?” American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 105 (5): 131–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Collins, William J., and Wanamaker, Marianne H. (2017) “Up from slavery? African American intergenerational economic mobility since 1880.” Working Paper 23395, National Bureau of Economic Research, www.nber.org/papers/w23395. Accessed October 1, 2020.Google Scholar
Costa, Dora L. (2012) “Scarring and mortality selection among Civil War POWs: A long-term mortality, morbidity, and socioeconomic follow-up.” Demography 49 (4): 1185–206.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, Dora L., and Kahn, Matthew E. (2007) “Surviving Andersonville: The benefits of social networks in POW camps.” American Economic Review 97 (4): 1467–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, Dora L., and Kahn, Matthew E. (2010) “Health, wartime stress, and unit cohesion: Evidence from Union Army veterans.” Demography 47 (1): 45–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dillingham, William Pyrle (1952) Federal Aid to Veterans, 1917–1941. University of Florida Press.Google Scholar
Feigenbaum, James J. (2016) “Automated census record linking: A machine learning approach.” BU Open Access Articles, www.hdl.handle.net/2144/27526. Accessed October 1, 2020.Google Scholar
Ferrie, Joseph P. (1996) “A new sample of males linked from the Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1850 US Federal Census of Population to the 1860 US Federal Census Manuscript Schedules.” Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 29 (4): 141–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetter, Daniel K. (2013) “How do mortgage subsidies affect home ownership? Evidence from the mid-century GI Bills.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 5 (2): 111–47.Google Scholar
Gabriel, Richard A., and Metz, Karen S. (1992) A History of Military Medicine: From the Renaissance through Modern Times. Greenwood Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Glasson, William Henry (1918) Federal Military Pensions in the United States. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hausman, Joshua K. (2016) “Fiscal policy and economic recovery: The case of the 1936 veterans’ bonus.” American Economic Review 106 (4): 1100–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hickey, Donald R. (2006) Don’t Give Up the Ship! Myths of the War of 1812. University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Barry T., and Mehay, Stephen L. (2003) “Evaluating the labor market performance of veterans using a matched comparison group design.” Journal of Human resources 38 (3): 673–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinder, John M. (2015) Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laschever, Ron (2013) “The Doughboys Network: Social interactions and the employment of World War I veterans.” SSRN Working Paper: 1–54.Google Scholar
Linker, Beth (2011) “The Great War and modern health care.” New England Journal of Medicine 374 (20): 1907–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linker, Beth (2016) War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Long, Jason, and Joseph, Ferrie (2013) “Intergenerational occupational mobility in Great Britain and the United States since 1850.” American Economic Review 103 (4): 1109–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malone, Carolyn (2013) “A job fit for heroes? Disabled veterans, the arts and crafts movement and social reconstruction in post-World War I Britain.” First World War Studies 4 (2): 201–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Officer, Lawrence, and Samuel H Williamson (2020) “The Annual Consumer Price Index for the United States, 1774–Present.” MeasuringWorth, www.measuringworth.com/. Accessed October 1, 2020.Google Scholar
Ruggles, Steven, Sarah, Flood, Ronald, Goeken, Josiah, Grover, Erin, Meyer, Jose, Pacas, and Matthew, Sobek (2020) “IPUMS USA: Version 10.0 [Dataset].” University of Minnesota, https://doi.org/10.18128/D010.V8.0.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, Hui Ren (2020) “Did military service during World War I affect the economic status of American veterans?” Explorations in Economic History (75): Article 101301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thurber, Evangeline (1946) “Rehabilitation of World War I veterans in District No. 12.” The Pacific Historical Review 15 (1): 68–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar