Health

Chronic health conditions are a global concern and can impact labor market outcomes of those diagnosed and their caregivers. Since the global prevalence of many chronic health conditions is on the rise, it is important to know what firms can do to retain and hire workers who are impacted. Firms can improve hiring by addressing biases against potential employees with chronic health conditions. Furthermore, firms can retain impacted workers by offering workplace flexibility such as partial sick leave, work hour flexibility, and part-time work options.

The fear of unemployment has increased around the world in the wake of Covid-19. Research has shown that job insecurity affects both mental and physical health, though the effects are lower when employees are easily re-employable. The detrimental effects of job insecurity could be partly mitigated if employers improved other aspects of job quality that support better health. But as job insecurity is felt by many more people than just the unemployed, the negative health effects during recessions are multiplied and extend through the majority of the population. This reinforces the need for effective, stabilising macroeconomic policies, most especially at this time of pandemic.

Public debate on immigration focuses on its effects on wages and employment, yet the discussion typically fails to consider the effects of immigration on working conditions that affect workers’ health. There is growing evidence that immigrants are more likely than natives to work in risky jobs. Recent studies show that as immigration rises, native workers are able to work in less demanding jobs. Such market adjustments lead to a reduction in native occupational risk and thus an improvement in native health.

The global economy is full of progress paradoxes. Improvements in technology, reducing poverty, and increasing life expectancy coexist with persistent poverty in the poorest countries and increasing inequality and unhappiness in many wealthy ones. A key driver of the latter is the decline in the status and wages of low-skilled labor, with an increasing percentage of prime-aged men (and to a lesser extent women) simply dropping out of the labor force. The trend is starkest in the US, though frustration in this same cohort is also prevalent in Europe, and it is reflected in voting patterns in both contexts.

Rising obesity is a pressing global public health problem responsible for rising health care costs and in some countries one of the leading causes of preventable deaths. There is substantial evidence that obese people are less likely to be employed and, when employed, earn lower wages. There is some evidence that the lower earnings are a result of discriminatory hiring and sorting into jobs with less customer contact. Understanding whether obesity is associated with adverse labor market outcomes and ascertaining the source of these outcomes are essential for designing effective public policy.

A non-trivial portion of traffic fatalities involve alcohol or illicit drugs. But does substance use—which is linked to depression, suicide, and criminal activity—also reduce academic performance? Recent studies suggest that the consumption of alcohol has a negative effect on the grades of university students. Likewise, there is evidence that marijuana use reduces the academic performance of university students. Although students who use illicit substances are more likely to drop out of high school than those who do not, this may reflect the influence of other, difficult-to-measure factors at the individual level, such as personality.

Do workplace programs help reduce worker sickness absence? Many programs are based on the principle that the employee’s decision to report an absence can be influenced if it is costly to be absent. Firms can reduce absenteeism by implementing broad programs, including performance pay, general improvements of working conditions, and strengthening workers’ loyalty to the firm. Specific programs, such as grading partial absence, seem to be effective at reducing long-term absences. However, firms will be less inclined to implement such programs if they can shift the financial burden to social security programs.

Discrimination is a complex, multi-factor phenomenon. Evidence shows widespread discrimination on various grounds, including ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or beliefs, disability, being over 55 years old, or being a woman. Combating discrimination requires combining the strengths of a range of anti-discrimination policies while also addressing their weaknesses. In particular, policymakers should thoroughly address prejudice (taste-based discrimination), stereotypes (statistical discrimination), cognitive biases, and attention-based discrimination.

Retirement offers the opportunity to give up potentially risky, unhealthy, and/or stressful work, which is expected to foster improvements in retirees’ health. However, retirement also bears the risk that retirees suffer from the loss of daily routines, physical and/or mental activity, a sense of identity and purpose, and social interactions, which may lead them to adopt unhealthy behaviors. Depending on the relative importance of the different mechanisms, retirement may either improve or cause a deterioration of retirees’ health, or eventually have no effect on it at all.

Understanding the impacts of climate change on time allocation is a major challenge. The best approach comes from looking at how people react to short-term variations in weather. Research suggests rising temperatures will reduce time spent working and enjoying outdoor leisure, while increasing indoor leisure. The burden will fall disproportionately on workers in industries more exposed to heat and those who live in warmer regions, with the potential to increase existing patterns of inequalities. This is likely to trigger an adaptation, the scope and mechanisms of which are hard to predict, and will undoubtedly entail costs.