Research

Abstract

Growing interest in the impact of lifetime occupational exposures on later-life health highlights the need to assess the quality of retrospective job history data. This study evaluated the accuracy of job history information collected retrospectively in the Life History Mail Survey (LHMS) with data collected contemporaneously in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Using LHMS data from 2015 and 2017, we compared self-reported work status to contemporaneous HRS core interview data from 1992 to 2016, focusing on jobs held at the time of interview, with limited comparisons of occupation and industry. Among respondents (mean age 74.7 years; 61.79% female; 82.12% white; 8.57% Hispanic), the work status match rate was 83%. Recall was less accurate for jobs held longer ago but more accurate for full-time, longer-duration, and fewer jobs. Higher conscientiousness and cognitive functioning were linked to greater recall accuracy. Occupation and industry match rates were 69% and 77%, respectively

Abstract

A large research literature attests to the important role of work in human health. Less research has investigated the potential role of work environments as a key factor shaping racial and ethnic health disparities. Work environments that are physically demanding, stressful, and hazardous are typically associated with earlier onset of physical health decline that may be associated with increased risk of early retirement due to disability. No research to date, however, has examined how differential exposure to work environments are associated with early disability retirement among Black, Hispanic, and white individuals. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study Life History Mail survey linked to information on work environments from the Occupational Information Network to characterize potentially harmful lifetime work contexts. We find that a wide range of harmful work environments are associated with early disability retirement, at or before age 62. Black workers are more likely than white workers to retire due to disability and are exposed to higher average levels of hazardous work environments over their careers. Lifetime average occupational exposures account for some of the association between race and early disability retirement. Findings related to ethnicity were inconclusive. Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in disability may hinge in part on understanding the role of potentially modifiable aspects of the work environment.

Abstract

Existing studies find that COVID-19 disproportionately affected the employment and financial security of minoritized workers. However, few studies have examined the employment and financial impact of COVID-19 among different groups of older workers. Furthermore, there is limited information on how pre- and post-COVID-19 financial precarity are associated. To address these gaps, we analyzed data from the 2016 and 2018 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), as well as the 2021 HRS Perspectives on the Pandemic mail-in survey, to evaluate racial differences in the consequences of COVID-19-related job disruption and financial precarity among workers 51 and older. Results indicate that non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic workers had higher rates of COVID-19-related job disruptions than their white counterparts. Further, non-Hispanic Black older workers were more likely to have stopped work due to illness than their white counterparts. Results also show that non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic older workers experienced more post-COVID-19 financial consequences than their white counterparts. Finally, analysis of interaction terms indicated that the association between pre-COVID-19 financial precarity status and post-COVID-19 financial precarity outcomes was dependent on race. Specifically, although pre-COVID-19 financial precarity was associated with significantly higher rates of post-COVID-19 precarity for all racial groups, white older workers without pre-COVID-19 precarity were uniquely protected from post-COVID-19 precarity, whereas Black and Hispanic older workers were likely to experience relatively high rates of post-COVID-19 precarity even in the absence of pre-COVID-19 precarity.

A growing body of evidence establishes a positive connection between cognitively engaging activities and later life cognitive functioning. Cognitively stimulating work—jobs that involve complex tasks and demands—is gaining increased research attention in this regard. Given data limitations to date, however, less research has focused on exposure to job complexity over the entire adult life course. We leverage new retrospective data from the Health and Retirement Study on job histories spanning early adulthood through midlife in combination with the rich prospective survey measurement of cognitive functioning through mid- and later-life to study this association (N=6,744; 41.24% men). We link early life job histories to historical information from the Occupational Information Network to characterize lifetime job complexity exposure. We find a lifetime pattern of annual exposure to job complexity (those demanding complex problem solving, critical thinking, inductive reasoning, guiding and directing others, making decisions, and coordinating/leading others) of a rapid increase in the 20s, gradually increasing through the 30s, 40s, and 50, and decreasing after age 60. We find no significant cohort differences (people born 1924-1941 vs after), but there are gender and racial/ethnic differences. Women’s annual exposure to job complexity tends to start at a higher level compared to that of men, but by their early 30s, men’s exposure exceeds women’s and remains higher. Non-Hispanic whites have significantly higher lifetime job complexity exposure relative to Non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic individuals. These patterns shed light on life course work exposures and demographic factors associated with differences in later-life cognitive functioning.

Career advancement is often described in terms of job ladders, where workers move from lower to higher positions as their careers progress. However, defining job ladders based solely on wage levels can be misleading, since wages vary across occupations and industries for reasons unrelated to career stage. To develop a more accurate representation of career progression, this project constructs a job-transition network based on individuals’ observed employment histories. A key step involves standardizing job titles using Natural Language Processing methods to merge semantically similar titles and reduce artificial fragmentation in occupations. The resulting network has nodes representing harmonized job titles and directed edges capturing the empirical likelihood of transitions between roles. By identifying clusters and upward mobility paths in this network, I derive a data-driven job ladder that reflects actual career dynamics rather than wage-based assumptions. I then use this ladder to study the trade-off between narrow specialization, which may facilitate faster promotion within a track, and broader career paths that offer more outside options but slower advancement. This framework provides a richer understanding of how workers navigate career development in a labor market characterized by diverse occupational structures.

Description

This document describes a dataset that provides a linkage between measures and variables provided in “historical” databases of the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) with detailed 2000 Census occupational codes found in 2004-2010 restricted access Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data releases. Specifically, this project links detailed worker and occupational characteristics data taken from the O*NET 5.0 and 10.0 databases with detailed 2000 Census occupational codes found in restricted access HRS datasets for Core interview years 2004 to 2010.