The Simultaneous Effects of Earnings and Intrinsic Job Rewards on Health over the Life Course

• In Event: Aging and the Life Course Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 11: Employment, Job Quality, and Retirement

Abstract

Paid work is a central social determinant of health, yet prior research has focused primarily on its monetary returns while giving limited attention to how different job attributes are dynamically interconnected in shaping health. This study investigates the simultaneous causal effects of earnings and intrinsic job rewards on physical and mental health over the life course. Drawing on longitudinal data from the Youth Development Study (1988-2019), which follows respondents from adolescence into midlife, I apply marginal structural models (MSM) with inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) to address time-varying confounding and reverse causality between work and health. Earnings (log hourly wages) represent extrinsic job rewards, while intrinsic rewards capture autonomy, skill development, and meaningful work. Results indicate that intrinsic job rewards exert strong and consistent protective effects on mental health: higher intrinsic rewards predict lower depressed mood and higher positive well-being. In contrast, earnings show smaller mental health effects but significantly reduce physical pain, particularly during adulthood. Stage-specific analyses reveal heterogeneity across career phases, with intrinsic rewards most strongly associated with mental health across stages and wage effects more pronounced for physical health in adulthood. These findings highlight the distinct and complementary roles of economic and psychosocial job rewards in shaping health trajectories and underscore the importance of modeling their dynamic interconnections across the life course.

Author

• Xiaowen Han, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities