Workers' Compensation Rehabilitation: a Human Capital Perspective.

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between human capital and rehabilitation outcome. Subjects were a national sample of 10,255 workers' compensation recipients accepted for service by the state-federal rehabilitation program, who were rehabilitated (N = 5,729) and not rehabilitated (N = 4,526). To test the general hypothesis that workers' compensation recipients with more human capital would have a higher rate of rehabilitation, human capital theory was used to operationally define the independent variables as (1) education, (2) physical or mental restoration services, (3) college training, (4) vocational schooling, (5) on-the-job training, (6) vocational adjustment services and , (7) miscellaneous training. The dependent variable was successful rehabilitation or a lack of successful rehabilitation. The findings supported the general hypothesis that workers' compensation recipients with higher levels of human capital had a higher rehabilitation success rate than workers' compensation recipients with lower levels of human capital. In addition, a combination of human capital variables explained more of the variance between successful and unsuccessful outcome than was explained by the demographic variables of age, sex and race. Implications for theory and future research were the concept that human capital theory provides an alternative theoretical perspective which can be used with a secondary data base to formulate problems for research, frame research questions, and interpret findings. Additional research needs to be conducted to determine whether a group of rehabilitants have higher financial earnings based on varying levels of human capital possessed. Further research is also indicated to address the relationship between levels of human capital and psychological benefits within and between groups of rehabilitated and nonrehabilitated clients.