Abstract

The central focus of this paper is analysis of one of the risk groups in the labour market– people with health problems. An attempt is made to find out if these people, concerning salary, correspondence of the job to educational level, unemployment experience, danger of losing a job, etc., differ from those do not have health problems. The analysis is based on the Estonian labour force survey data of 2002, which included the additional module “health”. Altogether 3105 persons (22.7%) out of 13663 15–64-year-old respondents reported that they were suffering from a lasting disease or disability which has lasted or is likely to last 6 months or longer.

According to empirical data, it can be concluded that people with health problems and people without health problems have different positions in the Estonian labour market. Compared with people without health problems, people suffering from a lasting disease or disability earn less, their job does not more often correspond to their educational level and presupposes a lower level of education; more of them have experienced unemployment and consider it possible to lose a job within in the forthcoming year. They are also more skeptical concerning the opportunity to find another job suited to their skills and experience.