The morning after: alcohol misuse and employment problems

Abstract

Using a rich, recent and nationally representative longitudinal survey specifically designed to examine alcohol use and associated problems, we investigate the effects of alcohol misuse on a series of understudied and perhaps less common employment problems. Such problems include being fired or laid off from a job, sustained unemployment and conflicts with a supervisor and/or co-worker. After controlling for time-invariant omitted variables via fixed effects estimation, we find evidence that three measures of alcohol misuse are significantly related to employment problems. The results offer new information on the potential adverse labour market effects of alcohol misuse and shed light on potential mechanisms through which alcohol misuse may impact intensive labour supply and/or wages.

Acknowledgements

Financial assistance for this study was provided by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (R01 AA015695 and R01 AA13167). We are indebted to William Russell and Carmen Martinez for editorial and administrative assistance and to an anonymous reviewer for helpful suggestions on an earlier version of the article.

Notes

¹ Additional information on the sampling frame, instrumentation, and key findings of the NESARC can be found in Grant et al. (2003, 2009), Dawson et al. (2007) and Ruan et al. (2008).

² NESARC respondents were asked how often they consumed five or more drinks (four or more drinks for women) in the last 12 months. Eleven response categories were provided ranging from ‘never’ in the last 12 months to daily consumption at this level. Abstainers were not asked and were coded as zero. Respondents reporting this pattern of alcohol use on a weekly or more frequent basis were coded as one and zero otherwise.

³ For a detailed review of fixed-effects models, see Wooldridge (2001).