The Effects of First Occupation on Long Term Health Status: Evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study
35 Pages Posted: 17 Oct 2011
Date Written: July 16, 2011
Abstract
In this paper, we use a longitudinal survey that has collected information for 50 years on a large cohort of Wisconsin high school graduates and their siblings to examine the long term impact of early occupational choice on health status. We find evidence that beginning a career in a blue collar occupation is correlated with several measures of poor health outcomes at ages 50-65. Since our dataset includes usually unobserved pre-labor market characteristics, including IQ and childhood health status, we can show that controlling for these variables is important for many results and suggests a high level of selection into occupation based on health and ability. We also provide evidence of gender differentials in the association between first occupation and later health. Then, we replace our basic measure of occupational categories with summary measures of job characteristics and find that employment at “bad jobs” at the beginning of an individual’s career predicts later health outcomes. Finally, we use sibling information in the dataset to show that unmeasured family background factors explain a large share of the effects of occupation on later health. Overall, the evidence points to limited, though heterogeneous, long term effects of health from blue collar employment.
Keywords: First Occupation, Health, Sibling Fixed Effects
JEL Classification: I12, J24
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
The Long-Term Labor Market Consequences of Graduating from College in a Bad Economy
By Lisa B. Kahn
-
By Philip Oreopoulos, Till Von Wachter, ...
-
By Philip Oreopoulos, Till Von Wachter, ...
-
By Philip Oreopoulos, Till Von Wachter, ...
-
In the Right Place at the Wrong Time: The Role of Firms and Luck in Young Workers' Careers
By Till Von Wachter and Stefan Bender
-
Teenage Unemployment: Permanent Scars or Temporary Blemishes?
-
The Making of an Investment Banker: Macroeconomic Shocks, Career Choice, and Lifetime Income
By Paul Oyer
-
The Making of an Investment Banker: Macroeconomic Shocks, Career Choice, and Lifetime Income
By Paul Oyer
-
Order from Chaos? The Effects of Early Labor Market Experiences on Adult Labor Market Outcomes
By Rosella Gardecki and David Neumark