Joelle Abramowitz

Dr. Joelle Abramowitz’s research examines the effects of different policies on individuals’ major life decisions and wellbeing including on health insurance and medical out-of-pocket expenditures as well as bigger picture effects on outcomes such as marriage, fertility, and work. She has worked intimately with a variety of datasets containing health insurance, demographic, employer, and administrative information, developing an expertise in the benefits, shortcomings, and intricacies of using and linking alternate datasets as well as a familiarity with the relevant literature, analytical approaches, and policy history in this line of research. In ongoing work, she applies this experience to enhancing Health and Retirement Study data through linkage with Census Bureau data on employers as part of the CenHRS project. This work includes considering how employer-sponsored health insurance offerings are changing in response to an aging workforce as well as changes in the employment arrangements of individuals nearing retirement. To this end, she considers how such changes affect a range of health- and economic-related outcomes, including physical and emotional wellbeing as well as economic security in retirement.