No Pain, No Gain: Work Demand, Work Effort, and Worker Health

We employ Danish worker-firm data to study the effect of rising workload on health. Using both within-job-spell regression analyses and cohort event studies, we show that increases in firm sales lead workers to log longer hours and experience higher probabilities of stress, depression, heart disease, and strokes, with more pronounced effects for high-risk groups such as older workers, job-strained workers, and those with long initial work hours. We calculate that the average worker's ex-ante welfare loss due to higher sickness rates accounts for nearly one quarter of her earnings gains from rising firm sales.