Occupational Status and Health Transitions

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. A recent history of blue-collar employment predicts a substantial increase in the probability of transitioning from very good into bad self-assessed health, relative to white-collar employment, but with no evidence of occupational differences in movements from bad to very good health. These findings are robust to a series of sensitivity analyses. The results suggest that blue-collar workers "wear out" faster with age because they are more likely, than their white-collar counterparts, to experience negative health shocks. This partly reflects differences in the physical demands of blue-collar and white-collar jobs.JEL Classification: I12, J24

The wear and tear on health: What is the role of occupation?

“…Choo and Denny () report similar patterns for Canadian workers while controlling for a more extensive set of lifestyle factors and suggest that manual work has an independent effect on health over and above any differences in lifestyle across occupations. Using the longitudinal Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Morefield, Ribar, and Ruhm () estimate that 5 years of blue‐collar employment predicts a 4% to 5% increase in the probability of moving from good health to poor health.…”

The Health Consequences of Adverse Labor Market Events: Evidence from Panel Data

“…Other dimensions of the work environment, such as job satisfaction, prestige, occupation, commuting time, and hazardous work conditions also influence health after conditioning on income (Fischer and Sousa-Poza 2009;Fletcher, Sindelar, and Yamaguchi 2011;Lakdawalla and Philipson 2007;Morefield, Ribar, and Ruhm 2012;Rablen and Oswald 2008;Rashad Kelly et al 2014;Roberts, Hodgson, and Dolan 2011). These studies demonstrate that, independent of income, better working conditions and desirable jobs lead to better health.…”

Occupational hazards and social disability insurance

“…A few papers present similar empirical results (e.g. Fletcher et al, 2009;Morefield et al, 2011). These papers both connect physically demanding occupations to health problems later in life.…”