IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cir/cirwor/2015s-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Job Loss on Health: Evidence from Biomarkers

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre-Carl Michaud
  • Eileen Crimmins
  • Michael Hurd

Abstract

The effect of job loss on health may play an important role in the development of the SES-health gradient. In this paper, we estimate the effect of job loss on objective measures of physiological dysregulation using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study and biomarker measures collected in 2006 and 2008. We use a variety of econometric methods to account for selection and reverse causality. Distinguishing between layoffs and business closures, we find no evidence that business closures lead to worse health outcomes. We also find no evidence that biomarker health measures predict subsequent job loss becaue of business closures. We do find evidence that layoffs lead to diminished health. Although this finding appears to be robust to confounders, we find that reverse causality tends to bias downward our estimates. Matching estimates, which account for self-reported health conditions prior to the layoff and subjective job loss expectations, suggest even stronger estimates of the effect of layoffs on health as measured from biomarkers, in particular for glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and C-reactive protein (CRP). Overall, we estimate that a layoff could increase annual mortality rates by 9.4%, which is consistent with other evidence of the effect of mass layoffs on mortality.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre-Carl Michaud & Eileen Crimmins & Michael Hurd, 2015. "The Effect of Job Loss on Health: Evidence from Biomarkers," CIRANO Working Papers 2015s-05, CIRANO.
    • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2015s-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cirano.qc.ca/files/publications/2015s-05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Browning, Martin & Heinesen, Eskil, 2012. "Effect of job loss due to plant closure on mortality and hospitalization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 599-616.
    2. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    3. Eileen Crimmins & Jung Kim & Sarinnapha Vasunilashorn, 2010. "Biodemography: New approaches to understanding trendsand differences in population health and mortality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(1), pages 41-64, March.
    4. Seeman, Teresa & Merkin, Sharon S. & Crimmins, Eileen & Koretz, Brandon & Charette, Susan & Karlamangla, Arun, 2008. "Education, income and ethnic differences in cumulative biological risk profiles in a national sample of US adults: NHANES III (1988-1994)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 72-87, January.
    5. Martin Salm, 2009. "Does job loss cause ill health?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(9), pages 1075-1089, September.
    6. Seeman, Teresa E. & Crimmins, Eileen & Huang, Mei-Hua & Singer, Burton & Bucur, Alexander & Gruenewald, Tara & Berkman, Lisa F. & Reuben, David B., 2004. "Cumulative biological risk and socio-economic differences in mortality: MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(10), pages 1985-1997, May.
    7. Martin Browning & Anne Moller Dano & Eskil Heinesen, 2006. "Job displacement and stress‐related health outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(10), pages 1061-1075, October.
    8. Abadie, Alberto & Imbens, Guido W., 2011. "Bias-Corrected Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(1), pages 1-11.
    9. Daniel Sullivan & Till von Wachter, 2009. "Job Displacement and Mortality: An Analysis Using Administrative Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 124(3), pages 1265-1306.
    10. Mari Rege & Kjetil Telle & Mark Votruba, 2009. "The Effect of Plant Downsizing on Disability Pension Utilization," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(4), pages 754-785, June.
    11. James P. Smith, 1999. "Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 145-166, Spring.
    12. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2015. "Losing Heart? The Effect of Job Displacement on Health," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(4), pages 833-861, August.
    13. Marcus Eliason & Donald Storrie, 2009. "Does Job Loss Shorten Life?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    14. Schnorpfeil, Pia & Noll, Alexander & Schulze, Renate & Ehlert, Ulrike & Frey, Karl & Fischer, Joachim E., 2003. "Allostatic load and work conditions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 647-656, August.
    15. Schröder, Mathis, 2013. "Jobless Now, Sick Later? Investigating the Long-term Consequences of Involuntary Job Loss on Health," EconStor Open Access Articles, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 5-15.
    16. Salm, M., 2009. "Does job loss cause ill health?," Other publications TiSEM 314436db-9957-4912-ba47-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2006. "Large Sample Properties of Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(1), pages 235-267, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amélie Adeline & Ismaël Choinière Crèvecoeur & Raquel Fonseca & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2019. "Income Volatility, Health and Well-Being," Cahiers de recherche / Working Papers 1906, Chaire de recherche sur les enjeux économiques intergénérationnels / Research Chair in Intergenerational Economics.
    2. Rocco, Lorenzo & Crema, Angela & Simonato, Lorenzo & Cestari, Laura, 2018. "The effect of job loss on pharmaceutical prescriptions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 73-83.
    3. Devillanova, Carlo & Raitano, Michele & Struffolino, Emanuela, 2019. "Longitudinal employment trajectories and health in middle life: Insights from linked administrative and survey data," EconStor Open Access Articles, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1375-1412.
    4. Everding, Jakob & Marcus, Jan, 2020. "The effect of unemployment on the smoking behavior of couples," EconStor Open Access Articles, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 154-170.
    5. Bloemen, Hans & Hochguertel, Stefan & Zweerink, Jochem, 2018. "Job loss, firm-level heterogeneity and mortality: Evidence from administrative data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 78-90.
    6. Thomas F. Crossley & Federico Zilio, 2018. "The health benefits of a targeted cash transfer: The UK Winter Fuel Payment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(9), pages 1354-1365, September.
    7. Italo A. Gutierrez & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2017. "Whistle While You Work: Job Insecurity and Older Workers' Mental Health in the United States," Cahiers de recherche 1702, Chaire de recherche Industrielle Alliance sur les enjeux économiques des changements démographiques.
    8. Lee, Y-W.;, 2019. "Effects of Parental Job Loss and Insecurity on Children’s Health: Evidence from Korea," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    9. Galárraga, Omar & Rana, Aadia & Rahman, Momotazur & Cohen, Mardge & Adimora, Adaora A. & Sosanya, Oluwakemi & Holman, Susan & Kassaye, Seble & Milam, Joel & Cohen, Jennifer & Golub, Elizabeth T. & Met, 2018. "The effect of unstable housing on HIV treatment biomarkers: An instrumental variables approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 70-82.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Job loss; Health; SES-health gradient; Biomarkers;

    JEL classification:

    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2015s-05. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Webmaster). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/ciranca.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.