The Effects of Health and Local Unemployment on Job Promotions

We study the effects of work limiting health issues in combination with adverse local economic conditions on career advancement using a US panel data set that follows a cohort of people from 1987 (ages 22–30) to 2014 (ages 49–57). We find that work limiting health issues decrease the probability of promotions at the current job only if the individual lives in an area with high levels of unemployment. This effect is driven by individuals who do not or cannot move out of these areas. The combination of bad health and poor economic conditions significantly lowers the on-the-job promotion probabilities of workers between age 30–40 and is weaker and not significant for younger workers or workers past age 50. Gender and race play a minor role but the negative effect of work limiting health issues on promotions—conditional on living in areas with high unemployment—are enduring and can still be measured 6 years later. The low frequency of our data (biennial) does not allow us to establish a direct relationship between poor health during economic recessions on the probability of career advancement.