(Mis) Characterizing the Relationship between Education, Work, and Health

• In Event: Medical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 23. Social Determinants of Population Health

Abstract

Work is widely understood as a central mechanism linking education to health inequality, yet empirical research often measures “work” at the level of occupation rather than individuals’ lived job experiences. This practice assumes that occupational titles adequately capture working conditions, potentially obscuring substantial within-occupation heterogeneity. We assess how reliance on occupation-level measures may mischaracterize the relationship between education, work, and health. Using pooled data from the General Social Survey (2002–2022) and its Quality of Working Life module, we examine five domains of work-related stressors: psychosocial burden, workload demands, schedule and employment unpredictability, lack of autonomy, and safety and environmental hazards. We first estimate the extent of within- and between-occupation variation in these stressors. Preliminary results indicate substantial within-occupation variation across all stressor domains. Models using only occupational averages produce inconsistent associations with SRH. In contrast, individuals’ relative exposure to stressors—compared to others in the same occupation—is consistently and negatively associated with health. These findings suggest that occupation-level aggregates mask meaningful variation in working conditions and may bias conclusions about the role of work in generating health disparities. By demonstrating how measurement choices condition estimates of both work–health associations and educational inequalities in health, this study highlights the importance of moving beyond occupational proxies toward more precise measures of job-level experiences.

Authors

• Li Hsu, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Rob Warren, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities