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Does problem drinking affect employment? Evidence from England

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Author Info
Ziggy MacDonald (Department of Economics, University of Leicester, UK)
Michael A. Shields (Department of Economics, University of Melbourne, Australia)

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Abstract

In this paper, we use data from the Health Survey of England to show that problem drinking is negatively and significantly associated with the probability of being in work, once the endogenous relationship between these outcomes is accounted for. Being a problem drinker leads to a substantial reduction in the probability of working by between 7 and 31%, the former figure being roughly equivalent to the positive effect of having a degree relative to no qualifications in our data. This finding is robust to a variety of identifying restrictions and definitions of problem drinking. Moreover, we find that problem drinking defined by the observed psychological and physical symptoms of alcohol is an important predictor of employment, and allows for the fact that individuals differ in their tolerance or susceptibility to alcohol. Our results suggest that there may be important labour market benefits from public health policies aimed at the prevention and treatment of problem drinking. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/hec.816
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Publisher Info
Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Health Economics.

Volume (Year): 13 (2004)
Issue (Month): 2 ()
Pages: 139-155
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:13:y:2004:i:2:p:139-155

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Web page: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Ziggy MacDonald & Michael Shields, . "The Impact of Alcohol Use on Occupational Attainment and Wages," Discussion Papers in Public Sector Economics 98/8, Department of Economics, University of Leicester. [Downloadable!]
  2. Berger, Mark C & Leigh, J Paul, 1988. "The Effect of Alcohol Use on Wages," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 20(10), pages 1343-51, October.
  3. Weiwei Feng & Wei Zhou & J.S. Butler & Brenda M. Booth & Michael T. French, 2001. "The impact of problem drinking on employment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(6), pages 509-521. [Downloadable!]
  4. Vivian Hamilton & Barton H. Hamilton, 1997. "Alcohol and Earnings: Does Drinking Yield a Wage Premium," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(1), pages 135-51, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Simon M. Burgess & Carol Propper, 1998. "Early health-related behaviours and their impact on later life chances: evidence from the US," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(5), pages 381-399.
  6. Dave, Dhaval & Kaestner, Robert, 2002. "Alcohol taxes and labor market outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 357-371, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Barrett, Garry F, 2002. "The Effect of Alcohol Consumption on Earnings," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 78(240), pages 79-96, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Mullahy, John & Sindelar, Jody L, 1991. "Gender Differences in Labor Market Effects of Alcoholism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 161-65, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Zarkin, Gary A. & French, Michael T. & Mroz, Thomas & Bray, Jeremy W., 1998. "Alcohol use and wages: New results from the national household survey on drug abuse," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 53-68, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Jeffrey DeSimone, 1999. "Illegal Drug Use and Labor Supply," Working Papers 9906, East Carolina University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  11. French, Michael T. & Zarkin, Gary A., 1995. "Is moderate alcohol use related to wages? Evidence from four worksites," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 319-344, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. MacDonald, Ziggy & Pudney, Stephen, 2000. "Illicit drug use, unemployment, and occupational attainment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 1089-1115, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Michael T. French & Johanna C. Maclean, 2006. "Underage alcohol use, delinquency, and criminal activity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(12), pages 1261-1281. [Downloadable!]
  2. Anthony Harris, 2008. "Chronic Disease and Labour Force Participation in Australia: an endogenous multivariate probit analysis of clinical prevalence data," Centre for Health Economics Research Papers 25/08, Monash University, Centre for Health Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Pinka Chatterji & Jeffrey DeSimone, 2006. "High School Alcohol Use and Young Adult Labor Market Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 12529, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Edvard Johansson & Hannu Alho & Urpo Kiiskinen & Kari Poikolainen, 2004. "Abstaining from Alcohol and Labour Market Underperformance - Have we forgotten the `dry` alcoholics?," Discussion Papers 931, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy. [Downloadable!]
  5. Pinka Chatterji & Margarita Alegria & David Takeuchi, 2008. "Psychiatric Disorders and Employment: New Evidence from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES)," NBER Working Papers 14404, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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