"Labour market conditions and adult health in Mexico" by Pinar Mine Gunes and Magda Tsaneva
 

Economics

Labour market conditions and adult health in Mexico

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This paper examines the role of local labour market conditions on self-reported adult physical and mental health and health behaviours in Mexico. We construct measures of overall and gender-specific predicted employment growth rates using a shift-share approach that exploits exogenous variation in national industry-specific growth rates and baseline industry employment shares across municipalities. Using detailed household-level panel data and individual fixed effects, we find that increases in overall formal labour demand improve physical health of men but have no effect on the health of women. However, increases in gender-specific formal labour demand improve the physical health of both men and women, with larger effects among men. We also find significant but small effects of male labour demand on the mental health of men. All effects are more pronounced for less educated people. Finally, we explore a range of potential mechanisms, finding that the effects might operate through changes in labour market outcomes, but we do not find evidence that the effects operate through changes in health behaviours.

Publication Title

Canadian Journal of Economics

Publication Date

2-2022

Volume

55

Issue

1

First Page

106

Last Page

137

ISSN

0008-4085

DOI

10.1111/caje.12576

Keywords

mental health, Mexico, labor

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