Adults in midlife are dying at a higher rate than in the past due to drug overdose, suicide, and liver disease, or deaths of despair. Common explanations blame economic conditions, suggesting that Americans are facing increasing stress due to bleak economic prospects, leading to destructive health behaviors and poor mental and physical health. This project will examine how characteristics of precarious employment contribute to multiple dimensions of health, including alcohol consumption, prescription drug use, and depressive symptoms in midlife adults. The project will study whether these associations vary by gender and household socioeconomic status, and whether they vary by state-level social policies. For example, the project hypothesizes that state-level social policies related to financial assistance (e.g., state Earned Income Tax Credit) and health (e.g., expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act) shape how precarious employment affects health outcomes. The project will provide input to social polices suggesting actions for states to take to improve the health of citizens, as well as intervention points for organizations and agencies addressing problematic health patterns in the population.
This project studies both the short- and long-term health consequences of precarious employment among midlife workers. The project will analyze the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), an ongoing, nationally representative sample of adults over age 50 in the United States. The HRS has been administered every two years since 1992 (12 waves) and oversamples African-American and Hispanic households. The analytical sample will include respondents who are currently employed at each wave (approximately age 50 to 65) across four birth cohorts. The project will pay particular attention to the youngest cohort (age 50-55 in 2010), given recent attention to the morbidity and mortality of these midlife adults. Longitudinal models using fixed effects regression and growth mixture modeling will allow assessments of the relationship between precarious work and mental and physical health outcomes by state-level and household-level characteristics. The project will inform theories involving social stress, precarious work, and population health, and will provide policy guidance at the organizational, state, and national levels regarding ways to promote better health for this population.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
