The Impact of Harmful Working Conditions on Health

The health of the working population is one of the main factors determining the development of the country's economy. Health problems negatively affect employee productivity, lead to an increase in absenteeism and an increased risk of leaving the labor market. As a result, the companies for which they work and the state as a whole bear economic costs. The question of how working conditions affect the health of the population is an important research topic, which is especially relevant in light of the increase in the retirement age and the increase in health care costs. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of potentially harmful working conditions on the health of participants in the Russian labor market. In this work, based on data from 8 waves (2012 - 2019) of the RLMS HSE, the following harmful working conditions were considered: the absence of a formal employment contract, the presence of additional work, work in harmful and hazardous working conditions, shift work, work more than 8 hours in day, work more than 40 hours a week, work less than 30 hours a week. Self-reported health (SRH) and health problems were considered as indicators of health. The estimation methods were the specifications of dynamic logistic regression taking into account individual and temporal effects, as well as the Heckman model. The following results were obtained: informal employment negatively affects the health of men, and part-time employment negatively affects the health of women; excessive employment and the presence of additional work negatively affects the health of all persons, work in harmful and dangerous working conditions showed an insignificant positive effect on SRH, shift work did not have a statistically significant effect on the health of the respondents. The estimates obtained are consistent with the results of previous studies, except for the positive impact of working in harmful and hazardous working conditions. We explain this by the fact that due to the limitedness of our data, we do not take into account the duration of work in harmful conditions, it is possible that such work has positive short-term consequences due to benefits for workers in the harmful sector.