Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/183412 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IFN Working Paper No. 1183
Publisher: 
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm
Abstract: 
The association between occupational status and health has been taken to reveal the presence of health inequalities shaped by occupational status. However, that interpretation assumes no influence of health status in explaining occupational standing. This paper documents evidence of non-negligible returns to occupation status on health (which we refer to as the "healthy worker effect"). We use a unique empirical strategy that addressed reverse causality, namely an instrumental variable strategy using the variation in average health in the migrant's country of origin, a health measure plausibly not determined by the migrant's occupational status. Our findings suggest that health status exerts significant effects on occupational status in several dimensions; having a supervising role, worker autonomy, and worker influence. The effect size of health is larger than that of an upper secondary education.
Subjects: 
occupational status
self-reported health
immigrants
work autonomy
supervising role
JEL: 
J5
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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