The Effects of Social Status on Heart Disease: Evidence from Whitehall

Michael L. Anderson () and Michael Marmot
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Michael Marmot: Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of College London

No 1055, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Abstract: The positive cross-sectional relationship between socioeconomic status and health is well documented, but limited evidence exists regarding the effect of an experimental manipulation of social status on health. This paper estimates the effect of promotions on heart disease using data on British civil servants from the Whitehall II study. It identifies differences in departmental promotion rates as a plausibly exogenous source of variation in promotion opportunities and exploits this variation to estimate the effect of promotions on heart disease. The results suggest that promotions can reduce the probability of heart disease by 6 to 18 percentage points over a 15 year period. These estimates appear robust and are several times larger than cross-sectional estimates in the previous literature. We provide several theoretical and statistical explanations for this pattern. The results suggest that promotions may improve other physical health outcomes as well.

Keywords: heart disease; socioeconomic status; Great Britain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-04-01
Note: oai:cdlib1:are_ucb-1231
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:agrebk:1055

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