Diabetes and Employment Productivity: The Effect of Duration and Management Among Mexican Americans*

Diabetes has been shown to affect productivity. Most of the work to this point has been based on binary indicator measures for diabetes, other than Kahn, who considered the duration of diabetes. However, diabetes is a chronic disease with increasing likelihood of complications and co-morbidities as the disease develops over time. All of these complications are potentially detrimental to work propensity and productivity. However, productivity may also depend on the degree to which a person manages his or her diabetes over the duration of the disease. This study utilizes data from a recently completed survey of households in Brownsville, Texas, a largely Mexican-American community located on the Texas-Mexico border with a high prevalence of diabetes. Diabetes management, or control, is measured by blood sugar levels, glycosylated hemoglobin levels (HbA1c), and interaction terms. Results show that the duration of diabetes is negatively associated with male productivity, but management mitigates the harmful effects only slightly. Results imply that resources should be concentrated on preventing diabetes onset rather than on managing pre-existing cases of diabetes among Mexican-Americans, so that this group does not experience the negative consequences of having to work additional years while in poor health, if recent Deficit Commission proposals to increase the retirement age to 69 are put into effect.