Disability pension receipt in young adults: an analysis of the Swiss Social protection and labour market (SESAM) data

We used the 2010–2015 cross-sections of the Social protection and labour market; a unique dataset linking microdata from the Swiss Labour Force Survey, the Swiss Central Compensation Office Register, and the Unemployment Insurance Register. Multiple logistic regression was employed to explore the association between demographic, socioeconomic, and health factors and disability pension in young adults living in Switzerland with long-term activity limitation (N = 5306). Alternative specifications of the benchmark model were estimated as robustness checks; and subsample analyses were conducted excluding (i) those aged 18–24 and (ii) those with partial disability pension.

Our regression results showed that those living without a working partner (OR 2.11; 95% CI 1.51–2.94) and without a child aged 0–14 (OR 2.15; 95% CI 1.48–3.12), born in Switzerland (OR 2.68; 95% CI 1.87–3.84), of higher age (OR 1.16; 95% CI 1.12–1.19), having completed at most lower secondary school (OR 3.26; 95% CI 2.24–4.76), lacking income throughout the four-year period prior to interview (OR 3.94; 95% CI 2.70–5.75), suffering from chronic illness (OR 4.52; 95% CI 2.83–7.19), and severe long-term activity limitation (OR 4.52; 95% CI 2.83–7.19) had higher odds of DP. Our findings were robust to alternative specifications and subsamples; and the alternative specifications revealed differences by learnt occupation, with highest odds for those without an occupational qualification (OR 5.93; 95% CI 3.72–9.46; p-value 0.000) and for those in ‘Manufacturing’ (OR 3.59; 95% CI 1.91–6.71) relative to ‘Health, education, culture, and science’.