The impact of past working conditions on retirees’ self-assessed health and medication use

Résumé 0

This article aims to measure the net effect of physical and psychosocial working conditions, throughout their entire professional career, on retirees’ self-assessed physical and mental health, and drug consumption. Based on the French Health and Career Path ( Santé et Itinéraire Professionnel) survey, we control our regressions for socioeconomic characteristics, employment, career path, past individual characteristics on entering the labour market, and past health status. Our results highlight the negative role of exposure to detrimental working conditions on retirees’ physical and mental health, evidencing a clear relationship between physical constraints and physical health on the one hand, and between psychosocial risk factors and mental health (including drug consumption) on the other hand. These findings underline the long-term effect of difficult working conditions on health status, even after retirement.