Job loss, unemployment, and health

People who recently experienced job instability are generally in worse health than their stably employed counterparts. However, it remains unclear whether this association reflects true health consequences of socioeconomic shocks, or, alternatively, employment risks posed by poor health---most notably, the selection of sicker individuals out of jobs and into longer-term unemployment. Using data from the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this dissertation uses a variety of analytic and modeling strategies in an effort to untangle and explain associations between job loss, unemployment, and poor health.; The results point to reciprocal pathways between health and employment, which may operate differently in face of certain social disadvantages. Factoring out health-related selection out of jobs by focusing on job losses that resulted from the closure of an entire worksite, and using an individual-level fixed effects framework to address selection into reemployment, it appears that losing a job and being unemployed has true health consequences. Job losses that result from the closure of an entire worksite are, further, most strongly associated with stress-related diseases (e.g. cardiovascular risk and arthritis), suggesting that stress may mediate the health consequences of job loss.; However, results also suggest that health poses risks to employment. Certain diseases (e.g. asthma) are unlikely to be health responses to an event like job loss since they typically develop in childhood, long before people face the risk of a job loss. Associations between such diseases and job loss are, thus, most likely a reflection of selection. This project finds that being fired or laid off is associated with an increased risk of asthma. Such a pattern points to health-related selection out of jobs and suggests that employers are more likely to let go of their sicker employees.; It further seems that poor health may have a particularly strong influence on reemployment prospects if a person faces a typical labor market barrier (i.e., a minority racial status or low educational attainment). This finding suggests that, in the face of social disadvantages, health may be a particularly important labor market resource.