Turns out the economic 'cost' of diabetes on the workforce has been wildly overestimated for the last 30 years.
SSRN · March 17, 2026 · 6307883
The Takeaway
While data consistently shows people with diabetes work 10% less, this study uses a new statistical model to show the disease itself isn't the primary cause. It reveals that the same early-life conditions that lead to diabetes also lead to unemployment, meaning the disease is more a marker of pre-existing disadvantage than a direct cause of productivity loss.
From the abstract
Roughly 25% of older Americans have diabetes. OLS estimates indicate that diabetes is associated with a roughly ten percentage point reduction in employment and this effect has been constant for decades. Estimating its causal effect is challenging because diabetes is correlated with health behaviors and early-life conditions that also shape labor market outcomes. Using thirty years of data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), I implement an imperfect instrumental variables (IIV) approach