Publications
Publications
- 2021
- HBS Working Paper Series
Status and Mortality: Is There a Whitehall Effect in the United States?
By: Tom Nicholas
Abstract
The influential Whitehall studies found top-ranking civil servants in Britain experienced lower
mortality than civil servants below them in the organizational hierarchy. I test for a Whitehall
effect in the lifespan of a 1930 cohort of white collar employees at a leading American firm—
General Electric. All had access to a corporate health and welfare program during a critical
period associated with the health transition in the United States. I measure status using position
in the managerial hierarchy, attendance at prestigious management training camps, and
promotions, none of which is associated with a Whitehall-like rank-mortality gradient. Instead,
senior managers and executives experienced a mortality penalty of around 3 to 5 years relative
to those lower in the hierarchy. I discuss generalizability and potential explanations for this
reversal of the Whitehall phenomenon using additional data on the status and lifespan of top
business executives and US senators.
Keywords
Citation
Nicholas, Tom. "Status and Mortality: Is There a Whitehall Effect in the United States?" Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-074, January 2020. (Revised June 2022.)