Working Paper: NBER ID: w15640
Authors: Anne Case; Christina Paxson
Abstract: We use data from the Whitehall II study to examine the potential role played by early-life health and circumstances in determining health and employment status in middle and older ages. The population from which the Whitehall II cohort was drawn consisted almost exclusively of white collar civil servants. We demonstrate that estimates of the impact of early-life conditions based on the Whitehall II cohort provide a lower bound on the effect of early-life circumstances on adult health and economic status for the population as a whole. That said, using the Whitehall II cohort data, we find early life circumstances are all predictive of entry grade and promotion to higher grade in Whitehall. Even with controls for entry grade or current grade, we find that childhood circumstances predict cohort members' current health status. Using fixed effect and first-difference models of self-assessed health status and civil service employment grade, we find no evidence of civil service grade affecting future self-assessed health. However, we find self-assessed health has a significant effect on future civil service grade.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: I12; J24; J45
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| early-life circumstances (J13) | entry grade (Y20) |
| early-life circumstances (J13) | promotion (M51) |
| childhood health (I12) | entry grade (Y20) |
| childhood health (I12) | promotion (M51) |
| self-assessed health (I14) | civil service grade (J45) |
| civil service grade (J45) | self-assessed health (I14) |
| changes in health status (I14) | changes in civil service grade (J62) |