healthy worker effect


health·y work·er ef·fect

phenomenon observed initially in studies of occupational diseases; workers usually exhibit lower overall death rates than the general population because severely ill and disabled people are excluded from employment.

healthy worker effect

The observation that the health of employed people is generally better than that of the unemployed population. Conversely, the health of people who stop working is generally worse than the health of a similar group of people who continue to work.