The Impact of Health on Labor Supply Near Retirement

48 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2018

See all articles by Richard W. Blundell

Richard W. Blundell

UCL; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Jack Britton

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)

Monica Costa Dias

School of Economics, University of Bristol; Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)

Eric French

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS); Faculty of Economics

Date Written: September 2017

Abstract

Estimates of effect of health on employment differ from study to study due to differences in methods, data, institutional background and health measure. We assess the importance of these differences, using a unified framework to interpret and contrast estimate for the US and England. We find that subjective and objective health measures, and subjective measures instrumented by objective measures produce similar estimates but only if a sufficiently large number of objective measures is used. Otherwise, objective measures produce downward biased estimates. Failure to account for initial conditions produces upward biased estimates. We find that a single subjective health index yields similar estimates to multiple measures. Overall, declines in health explain up to 15% of the decline in employment between ages 50 and 70. The effects drop with education and are larger in the US than in England. Cognition has little added explanatory power once we control for health.

Keywords: Health, Cognition, Labor Supply, Retirement

JEL Classification: I10, J24, J26, E24

Suggested Citation

Blundell, Richard W. and Britton, Jack and Costa Dias, Monica and French, Eric, The Impact of Health on Labor Supply Near Retirement (September 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3103887 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3103887

Richard W. Blundell (Contact Author)

UCL ( email )

Department of Economics
Gower Street
London, WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom
+44 20 7504 5863 (Phone)
+44 20 7916 2773 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctp39a/

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

Jack Britton

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) ( email )

7 Ridgmount Street
London, WC1E 7AE
United Kingdom

Monica Costa Dias

School of Economics, University of Bristol ( email )

Bristol
United Kingdom

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) ( email )

7 Ridgmount Street
London, WC1E 7AE
United Kingdom

Eric French

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) ( email )

7 Ridgmount Street
London, WC1E 7AE
United Kingdom

Faculty of Economics ( email )

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