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The European Journal of Health Economics
Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics 1/2018

Open Access 01-01-2018 | Original Paper

Good jobs, good pay, better health? The effects of job quality on health among older European workers

Author: Golo Henseke

Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics | Issue 1/2018

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Abstract

Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, this study presents new evidence on the effects of job quality on the occurrence of severe acute conditions, the level of cardiovascular risk factors, musculoskeletal disorders, mental health, functional disabilities and self-assessed health among workers aged 50+. By combining intrinsic job quality with job insecurity and pay the study maps out multiple potential pathways through which work may affect health and well-being. Levering longitudinal data and external information on early retirement ages allows for accounting of unobserved heterogeneity, selection bias and reverse causality. The empirical findings suggest that inequities in health correlate with inequities in job quality, though a substantial fraction of these associations reflect time-constant unobserved heterogeneity. Still, there is evidence for genuine protective effects of better jobs on musculoskeletal disorders, mental health and general health. The effect could contribute to a substantial number of avoidable disorders among older workers, despite relatively modest effect sizes at the level of individuals. Mental health, in particular, responds to changes in job quality. Selection bias such as the healthy worker effect does not alter the results. But the influence of job quality on health may be transitional among older workers. An in-depth analysis of health dynamics reveals no evidence for persistence.
Appendix
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Footnotes
1
The total SHARE sample includes almost 207,000 person–year observations. Removing wave 3 deletes 27,908 observations; restricting the sample to the age-bracket 50–65 shrinks the sample by a further 87,738 observations. Many participants did not respond at follow-up interviews and provide only one interview. Questionnaire routing for some items reduce the number of observations further. Respondents in partial retirement were not asked about their career prospects or job security. In practice the number of observations varies between around 23,100 for concurrent health effects and 13,800 for health dynamics.
 
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Metadata
Title
Good jobs, good pay, better health? The effects of job quality on health among older European workers
Author
Golo Henseke
Publication date
01-01-2018
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
The European Journal of Health Economics / Issue 1/2018
Print ISSN: 1618-7598
Electronic ISSN: 1618-7601
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-017-0867-9

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