Professional trajectories and health in Europe.

Summary This thesis proposes to analyze the effects of ruptures in occupational trajectories on the health status of individuals in Europe. We consider two breaks in the career path: one at the beginning of the career -- entry into the labor market in a deteriorated economy -- and the other at the end of the career -- the transition to retirement. Between these two critical periods, we are specifically interested in the impact on health of a break, this time anticipated: the fear of losing one's job. Our empirical analyses combine data from European and British surveys. In order to overcome the endogeneity problems inherent in any empirical analysis of the link between health and career trajectory, we apply exogenous shocks to the careers of individuals. We thus use a natural experiment (the 1973 oil crisis) and the institutional characteristics as defined in the legislation of each European country (legal retirement ages, degrees of employment protection, compulsory schooling rules). Our project aims to identify a causal link between the professional activity of individuals and their obesity category through the use of specific econometric techniques taking into account endogeneity and the use of data from the GAZEL cohort (which has been following 20,000 volunteers employed at EDF-GDF since 1989).