Tom VanHeuvelen’s research while affiliated with University of Minnesota and other places

Geographical residence predicts health and well-being. Population health, life expectancy, and mortality are partially the outcome of the characteristics of one’s social policy context. Yet how do such links occur? We extend focus from health outcomes to health behaviors and from a policy context to a broader political context. Using 20 waves of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System between 1993 and 2021 in combination with the Correlates of State Policy Project, we find that right-leaning political contexts—both policies and public attitudes—are predictive of riskier health behaviors. Counterfactual simulations show that these associations are due less to states becoming more different over time but rather, with political contexts increasing in their predictiveness over time. Results from this study broaden the pathways linking local politics to health and identify a key antecedent, health behaviors, that helps explain political context’s influence on health.

Utilizing the geographical polarization of American politics, we examine how state politics shape the implementation of downsizing. Combining power resources theory and the political-embeddedness approach in organizational studies, we propose that labor power resources at the state level, namely Democratic control of state government and state-level union membership, limit firms’ ability to implement drastic job cuts within the state. Based on data on the 697 largest, publicly traded US firms between 1981 and 2005, combined with their establishment-level employment data from EEO-1 reports, our analysis shows that post-downsizing reductions in employment were less severe in states with a worker-friendly political environment. But the limited effectiveness of labor’s power resources in right-to-work states and the American South suggests that there is considerable regional variation. Our findings provide strong evidence of the political embeddedness of firms, by demonstrating the growing salience of political considerations in corporate decision-making.

Whereas previous research shows that union membership is associated with improved health, static measurements have been used to test dynamic theories linking the two. We construct a novel measure of cumulative unionization, tracking individuals across their entire careers, to examine health consequences in older adulthood. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1970–2019) and predict self-rated health, functional limitations, and chronic health conditions in ages 60 to 79 using cumulative unionization measured during respondents’ careers. Results from growth models show that unionized careers are associated with .25 SD to .30 SD improvements in health among older adults across all measures. Analyses of life course mechanisms reveal heterogeneous effects across unionization timing, age in older adulthood, and birth cohort. Moreover, subgroup analyses reveal unionization to partially, but not fully, ameliorate disparities based on privileged social positions. Our findings reveal a substantial and novel mechanism driving older adulthood health disparities.

Labor historians describe Right to Work (RTW) as among the most consequential pushbacks against the early twentieth-century ascent of labor unions. Yet research on the economic consequences of RTW remains mixed, with nearly all research centered empirically and theoretically on the time surrounding RTW passage. In the current study, I use 41 waves of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics between 1968 and 2019 to empirically and theoretically extend the mechanisms that link RTW and economic outcomes. First, following the vast majority of research on RTW, I show the demobilizing effects for labor following RTW passage: mean wages decline, wage inequality increases, and the union premium is halved in the middle and lower portion of the wage distribution. Second, I move theoretical focus beyond the time surrounding law enactment, arguing for a second-order effect whereby RTW institutionalizes a logic of polarized economic distributions and low labor power. To test this mechanism, I develop a novel strategy of comparison across respondents who are differentially mobile across state boundaries. I find individuals who cross RTW contexts experience a unique decline in mean wages and increase in wage variance, but this distinct trend can be explained by state-level institutional variation across RTW and non-RTW states. Thus, RTW is not only consequential in the periods around its passage, but also in establishing a long-standing, high-inequality regime. Results reveal multiple mechanisms by which RTW contributes to the long-run processes of union decline and broadly shared inequality growth.

Over the past 60 years, we have witnessed a relocation of gender wage inequality. Whereas the largest wage gaps were once concentrated among lower-paid, lower-educated workers, today these wage gaps sit among the highest-paid, highly-educated workers. Given this reordering of gender wage inequality and the centrality of college graduates to total inequality trends, in this article, we assess the contribution of higher education mechanisms to top-end gender inequality. Specifically, we use Census and ACS data along with unique decomposition models to assess the extent to which two mechanisms rooted in higher education-bachelor's-level fields of study and the attainment of advanced degrees-can account for the gender wage gap across the wage distribution. Results from these decomposition models show that while these explanatory mechanisms fare well among bottom and middle wages, their explanatory power breaks down among the highest-paid college workers. We conclude that women's attainment of "different" education (via fields of study) or "more" education (via advanced degrees) would do little to close the gender wage gaps that are contributing most to contemporary wage inequality trends. We suggest some directions for future research, and we also take seriously the role of discriminatory pay-setting at the top of the wage distribution.

Considerable evidence demonstrates that perceiving oneself as an object of discrimination has negative consequences for mental health. However, little is known about whether this experience is more or less harmful in distinct phases of the life course, consistent with the life course principle of timing; or whether, in accord with the principle of lifespan development, it has long-term implications. We draw on longitudinal data addressing perceived workplace discrimination based on race/ethnicity and gender from the prospective Youth Development Study, covering early adulthood to midlife. Hierarchical linear modelling of the effects of discrimination on depressed mood indicates that both forms of discrimination have short-term (within life stages) and long-term (across stages) adverse effects on adult mental health. The impacts of perceived discrimination within stages on depressed mood appear to be greatest in the mid-30s and to weaken by midlife. Lingering effects of discrimination are more pronounced early on. These patterns are observed with controls for key time-varying negative experiences at work and personal socio-economic status, as well as invariant background characteristics (gender, race and parental socio-economic status). We consider these findings in relation to the dynamics of personal change in the context of occupational careers.