Do people become healthier after being promoted?

Citation

Boyce CJ & Oswald AJ (2012) Do people become healthier after being promoted?. Health Economics, 21 (5), pp. 580-596. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1734

Abstract
This paper examines the hypothesis that greater job status makes a person healthier. It begins by successfully replicating the well-known cross-section association between health and job seniority. Then, however, it turns to longitudinal patterns. Worryingly for the hypothesis, the data -- on a large sample of randomly selected British workers through time -- suggest that people who start with good health go on later to be promoted. The paper can find relatively little evidence that health improves after promotion. In fact, promoted individuals suffer a significant deterioration in their psychological well-being (on a standard General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) mental ill-health measure).

Keywords
health; Whitehall studies; GHQ; locus of control; job satisfaction; mortality; status; Quality of life

Journal
Health Economics: Volume 21, Issue 5

People

Dr Christopher Boyce

Honorary Research Fellow, SMS Management and Support