Spousal Labor Market Effects from Government Health Insurance: Evidence from a Veterans Affairs Expansion

they lose their husbands’ coverage, or may seek jobs with employer-provided
insurance. Results in Table 5 Panel I demonstrate that women with health
insurance in the previous year are 2.2 ppt less likely to be not working, a 4.6%
decrease off the base of 0.47, but 1.8 ppt more likely to work part-time when their
husbands get health insurance, a 6.4% increase off the base of 0.28 for all wives
of veterans in the pre-period, and a 4% increase off the base of 0.43 for wives
with prior health insurance. Women without health insurance in the previous year
are less likely to be not working, but not significantly so and are 4.1 ppt less likely
to be part-time, a 14.4% decrease off the base of all wives and a 32% decrease off
the base of 0.13 for wives without health insurance in the previous period. As
shown in Table 5, Panel II, for women with employer-provided health insurance,
hours do not change significantly overall but decrease significantly conditional on
working at all with a coefficient of -0.59. For women without their own health
insurance in the previous year, hours increase significantly overall, with a
coefficient of 0.77, and increase conditional on working any hours with a
coefficient of 1.08. Earnings increase significantly for women without employer-
provided health insurance both conditional on having any earnings and
unconditional, but are not significant for women with health insurance. These
results suggest that women with health insurance are more likely to stay employed

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