title: The effect of job loss on overweight and drinking.
abstract: This paper examines the impact of job loss due to business closings on body mass index (BMI) and alcohol consumption. We suggest that the ambiguous findings in the extant literature may be due in part to unobserved heterogeneity in response and in part due to an overly broad measure of job loss that is partially endogenous (e.g., layoffs). We improve upon this literature using: exogenously determined business closings, a sophisticated estimation approach (finite mixture models) to deal with complex heterogeneity, and national, longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study. For both alcohol consumption and BMI, we find evidence that individuals who are more likely to respond to job loss by increasing unhealthy behaviors are already in the problematic range for these behaviors before losing their jobs. These results suggest the health effects of job loss could be concentrated among "at risk" individuals and could lead to negative outcomes for the individuals, their families, and society at large.
authors.affiliation: Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, USA. partha.deb@hunter.cuny.edu
authors.forename: Partha
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Deb
authors.forename: William T
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Gallo
authors.forename: Padmaja
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ayyagari
authors.forename: Jason M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Fletcher
authors.forename: Jody L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Sindelar
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014478:Unemployment / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology