Ravesteijn, Bastianvan Kippersluis, Hansvan Doorslaer, Eddy2018-05-302017Ravesteijn, Bastian, Hans van Kippersluis, and Eddy van Doorslaer. 2017. “The wear and tear on health: What is the role of occupation?” Health Economics 27 (2): e69-e86. doi:10.1002/hec.3563. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hec.3563.http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:37067907Summary Health is well known to show a clear gradient by occupation. Although it may appear evident that occupation can affect health, there are multiple possible sources of selection that can generate a strong association, other than simply a causal effect of occupation on health. We link job characteristics to German panel data spanning 29 years to characterize occupations by their physical and psychosocial burden. Employing a dynamic model to control for factors that simultaneously affect health and selection into occupation, we find that selection into occupation accounts for at least 60% of the association. The effects of occupational characteristics such as physical strain and low job control are negative and increase with age: late‐career exposure to 1 year of high physical strain and low job control is comparable to the average health decline from ageing 16 and 6 months, respectively.en-USdynamic modelsoccupational stressorsJournal Article2018-05-3010.1002/hec.3563