The Cumulative Impact of Job Characteristics on Health at Midlife

John R. ("Rob") Warren, University of Minnesota
Pascale Carayon, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Peter Honnakker, University of Wisconsin at Madison

In our research we investigate the cumulative impact of the physical and psychosocial characteristics of paid employment on a variety of physical and mental health outcomes using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS). We do so with an eye toward understanding the ways in which the physical and psychosocial job characteristics across the life course mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and health. Specifically, we ask how the physical and psychosocial characteristics of jobs influence general/overall health, depression, and cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and stress-related health problems and medical conditions. Questions about the impact of physical and psychosocial job characteristics have frequently been addressed using cross sectional or short-term longitudinal data, and so our ability to consider job characteristics across respondents’ careers and health outcomes at age 53 puts us in a much stronger position to understand how job characteristics cumulate to affect health.