Physical and Mental Health Problems and Workforce Engagement of Older Workers: Differences by Race and Gender

• In Event: 4266 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 5. Employment and Careers

Abstract

Despite higher levels of workforce participation among older adults, health disparities plague older workers. Understanding how social inequalities, such as race and gender, influence labor market participation and retirement patterns provides a deeper understanding of how health disparities lead to unequal life outcomes. Using the Health and Retirement Study, (N=13,939), we explore how having chronic physical health problems and depression affect workforce participation. We then assess how this association is moderated by race and gender. Findings show that having multiple chronic conditions was associated with working fewer hours. Only among Black men was multiple chronic conditions with depression more detrimental to workforce engagement than multiple chronic conditions without depression. This leads us to further promote intersectionality and cumulative (dis)advantage frameworks as lenses through which we might understand how physical, mental, and work processes unfold later in the life course.

Authors

• Kendra Jason, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

• Christy LaShaun Erving, Vanderbilt University