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The Effects of Social Status on Heart Disease: Evidence from Whitehall

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Author Info
Michael Anderson (UC Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Giannini Foundation)
Michael Marmot (Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of College London)

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Abstract

The positive cross-sectional relationship between socioeconomic status and health is well documented, but limited evidence exists regarding the effect of an experimental manipulation of social status on health. This paper estimates the effect of promotions on heart disease using data on British civil servants from the Whitehall II study. It identifies differences in departmental promotion rates as a plausibly exogenous source of variation in promotion opportunities and exploits this variation to estimate the effect of promotions on heart disease. The results suggest that promotions can reduce the probability of heart disease by 6 to 18 percentage points over a 15 year period. These estimates appear robust and are several times larger than cross-sectional estimates in the previous literature. We provide several theoretical and statistical explanations for this pattern. The results suggest that promotions may improve other physical health outcomes as well.

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File URL: http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1231&context=are_ucb
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley in its series Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series with number 1055.

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Date of creation: 01 Apr 2007
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Handle: RePEc:cdl:agrebk:1055

Note: oai:cdlib1:are_ucb-1231
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Related research
Keywords: heart disease; socioeconomic status; Great Britain;

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  1. Boyce, Christopher J. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Do People Become Healthier after Being Promoted?," IZA Discussion Papers 3894, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-27.


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