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The wear and tear on health: What is the role of occupation?
Author(s) -
Ravesteijn Bastian,
Kippersluis Hans van,
Doorslaer Eddy van
Publication year - 2018
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.3563
Subject(s) - psychosocial , affect (linguistics) , german , selection (genetic algorithm) , job control , physical health , psychology , gerontology , control (management) , association (psychology) , job strain , ageing , demographic economics , medicine , geography , mental health , economics , psychiatry , computer science , engineering , psychotherapist , sense (electronics) , management , communication , archaeology , artificial intelligence , electrical engineering
Summary Health is well known to show a clear gradient by occupation. Although it may appear evident that occupation can affect health, there are multiple possible sources of selection that can generate a strong association, other than simply a causal effect of occupation on health. We link job characteristics to German panel data spanning 29 years to characterize occupations by their physical and psychosocial burden. Employing a dynamic model to control for factors that simultaneously affect health and selection into occupation, we find that selection into occupation accounts for at least 60% of the association. The effects of occupational characteristics such as physical strain and low job control are negative and increase with age: late‐career exposure to 1 year of high physical strain and low job control is comparable to the average health decline from ageing 16 and 6 months, respectively.