It's Heart Healthy to Work for the Government
From the abstract of an article in the Economic Journal, another reason why working for the government is good for you:
This article estimates the effect of promotions on heart disease using data on British civil servants from the Whitehall II study. Differences in promotion rates across departments and cohorts generate plausibly exogenous variation in promotion opportunities. The results suggest that promotions may reduce the probability of developing heart disease by 2.6–12.8 percentage points over a 15-year period. These estimates appear robust and are several times larger than cross-sectional estimates.
I'm too cheap to buy the article, though if you've got a nose for this sort of thing, please do and report back.
Does anyone doubt, though, that with this kind of evidence to back it up, getting promoted in your civil service job will now be seen as a health care issue? As a civil right? And that getting fired or demoted will be legally actionable, as a personal injury claim?
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May '10
Re: It's Heart Healthy to Work for the Government
www.xkcd.com
Re: It's Heart Healthy to Work for the Government
Well, sure, but I think it's very important to factor in the plausibly exogenous variation in promotion opportunities, don't you?
Dec '10
Re: It's Heart Healthy to Work for the Government
Adding to Mark Wilson's comment:
Perhaps the effect that the study reveals isn't that promotion prevents heart disease, but that persons with external markers for current or future heart disease tend not to get promoted. Don't managers tend to favor more vital and energetic candidates when filling positions?
The remedy, of course, is to make promotion decisions blind to such factors. You know, to make it fair....
Oct '10
Re: It's Heart Healthy to Work for the Government
There was a definition for a certain management style, in short...
I dont get heart attacks, I give em. Heard of it ?