The Affordable Care Act and Women's Self-Employment

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 improved and expanded availability of non-group health insurance. Previous studies have shown that women in the U.S. workforce value health insurance more than men do. Because prior to the ACA self-employed individuals did not have guaranteed access to affordable health insurance, women͛s lower rate of self-employment may partly have reflected job lock due to reliance on employer-based group coverage. This paper employs nationally-representative survey data for 2012-2016 and a difference-in-difference modeling approach to demonstrate that in fact, unmarried women have had significantly higher probability of self-employment since the ACA health insurance exchanges opened in 2014, coincident with their relatively higher uptake of private non-group health insurance purchased on state exchanges. This evidence demonstrates additional economic benefits of the ACA legislation, beyond its direct effects on healthcare access and medical costs.