Health Effects of Risky Lifestyles and Adverse Working Conditions: Are Older Individuals More Penalized?

Using unusually rich panel data from Denmark, we investigate differences by age in the health implications of risky lifestyles and adverse working conditions. Accounting for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, overall, we find no health penalties for older workers (55 and over) compared to younger ones (18–34; 35–54). However, the former suffer more from the health consequences of risky lifestyles — especially the lack of consumption of fruit and vegetables and physical inactivity. Working conditions negatively relate with health, but fewer differences across age groups exist. Selection bias, namely the healthy worker effect, does not alter our results.