Occupational Experience and Socioeconomic Variations in Mortality

Low-income workers not only tend to work in more hazardous, physically intensive jobs than their higher-income counterparts, but they also must deal with the social stresses of making ends meet and living in impoverished environments. Not surprisingly, their life expectancies are shorter than those of higher earners. But which factors contribute most to this bleak outcome for blue-collar workers: socioeconomic stresses or workplace woes?

In previous research on this life-expectancy puzzle, Harriet Duleep of the Urban Institute examined data on the education, occupation, income, and industry of employment for a sample of individuals, noting the extent to which these factors impact mortality over a five-year period. She will now expand her analysis by examining these individuals' mortality rates over nearly three decades, allowing her to detect long-term consequences of job dangers and the impact of prolonged exposure to work-related perils on life expectancy. Further, she will more accurately estimate the likelihood that members of her sample were subjected to hazards on the job by matching individual records to information from the National Occupational Hazard Survey, an objective appraisal of workplace health conditions.

As economies change, so too does the nature of work. This research will help reveal whether we can expect the present shift in the U.S. job market away from physically demanding labor to lead to longer life spans or if remedies for social inequality are what the doctor ordered to improve the health of low-income workers.