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Do people become healthier after being promoted?
Author(s) -
Boyce Christopher J.,
Oswald Andrew J.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1734
Subject(s) - seniority , mental health , general health questionnaire , psychology , sample (material) , health promotion , gerontology , demographic economics , environmental health , medicine , psychiatry , public health , political science , economics , nursing , chemistry , chromatography , law
SUMMARY This paper examines the hypothesis that greater job status makes a person healthier. It begins by successfully replicating the well‐known cross‐section association between health and job seniority. Then, however, it turns to longitudinal patterns. Worryingly for the hypothesis, the data–on a large sample of randomly selected British workers through time–suggest that people who start with good health go on later to be promoted. The paper can find relatively little evidence that health improves after promotion. In fact, promoted individuals suffer a significant deterioration in their psychological well‐being (on a standard General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) mental ill‐health measure). Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.