IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Labour Force Participation of the Elderly in Europe: The Importance of Being Healthy

Author Info

  • Kalwij, Adriaan

    ()

    (Utrecht School of Economics)

  • Vermeulen, Frederic

    ()

    (KU Leuven)

Abstract

In this paper we study labour force participation behaviour of individuals aged 50-64 in 11 European countries. The data are drawn from the new Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The empirical analysis shows that health is multi-dimensional, in the sense that different health indicators have their own significant impact on individuals' participation decisions. Health effects differ markedly between countries. A counterfactual exercise shows that improved health conditions may yield over 10 percentage points higher participation rates for men in countries like Austria, Germany and Spain, and for females in the Netherlands and Sweden. Moreover, we show that the declining health condition with age accounts considerably for the decline in participation rates with age.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://ftp.iza.org/dp1887.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 1887.

as
in new window

Length: 30 pages
Date of creation: Dec 2005
Date of revision:
Publication status: published as: "Health and labour force participation of older people in Europe: what do objective health indicators add to the analysis?" in: Health Economics, 2008, 17(5), 619-638.
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1887
Contact details of provider: Postal:
IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Phone: +49 228 3894 223
Fax: +49 228 3894 180
Web page: http://www.iza.org

Order Information: Postal: IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Email:


Keywords: health; labour force participation; SHARE; retirement;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
  • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
  • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 2004. "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Micro-Estimation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub04-1, May.
  2. Rust, J., 1994. "How Social Security and Medicare Affect Retirement Behavior in a World of Incomplete Markets," Working papers 9430, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
  3. Michaud, Pierre-Carl & Vermeulen, Frederic, 2004. "A Collective Retirement Model: Identification and Estimation in the Presence of Externalities," IZA Discussion Papers 1294, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  4. Gustman, Alan L & Steinmeier, Thomas L, 2000. "Retirement in Dual-Career Families: A Structural Model," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 503-45, July.
  5. Lumsdaine, Robin L. & Mitchell, Olivia S., 1999. "New developments in the economic analysis of retirement," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 49, pages 3261-3307 Elsevier.
  6. Agar Brugiavini & Tullio Jappelli & Guglielmo Weber, 2002. "The Survey on Health, Aging and Wealth," CSEF Working Papers 86, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
  7. Bound, John & Schoenbaum, Michael & Stinebrickner, Todd R. & Waidmann, Timothy, 1999. "The dynamic effects of health on the labor force transitions of older workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 179-202, June.
  8. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 2002. "The Social Security Early Entitlement Age in a Structural Model of Retirement and Wealth," NBER Working Papers 9183, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Disney, Richard & Emmerson, Carl & Wakefield, Matthew, 2006. "Ill health and retirement in Britain: A panel data-based analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 621-649, July.
  10. James P. Smith, 1999. "Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 145-166, Spring.
  11. Kerkhofs, Marcel & Lindeboom, Maarten & Theeuwes, Jules, 1999. "Retirement, financial incentives and health," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 203-227, June.
  12. Jonathan Gruber & David Wise, 2005. "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Fiscal Implications, Introduction and Summary," NBER Working Papers 11290, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. James H. Stock & David A. Wise, 1988. "Pensions, The Option Value of Work, and Retirement," NBER Working Papers 2686, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  14. Blau, David M, 1998. "Labor Force Dynamics of Older Married Couples," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(3), pages 595-629, July.
  15. Richard Blundell & Costas Meghir & Sarah Smith, 2002. "Pension Incentives and the Pattern of Early Retirement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages C153-C170, March.
  16. repec:crs:ecosta:es403-404a is not listed on IDEAS
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Anders Stenberg & Olle Westerlund, 2013. "Education and retirement: does University education at mid-age extend working life?," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-22, December.
  2. Serguey Ivanov, 2009. "Demographic and economic factors of labour supply: Long-term projections and policy options for France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 7(1), pages 83-122.
  3. Anders Stenberg & Xavier Luna & Olle Westerlund, 2012. "Can adult education delay retirement from the labour market?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 677-696, January.
  4. Dekkers, Gijs, 2008. "Are the old poor? A discussion and some cursory evidence," MPRA Paper 29436, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  5. Hostenkamp, Gisela & Stolpe, Michael, 2008. "Optimal health and retirement policies amid population aging," Kiel Working Papers 1428, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
  6. Van Bui & Michael Stolpe, 2010. "The impact of new drug launches on the loss of labor from disease and injury: evidence from German panel data," International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 315-346, December.
  7. Bui, Thi Mai Van & Stolpe, Michael, 2007. "The impact of new drug launches on the loss of labor from disease and injury: evidence from German panel data," Kiel Working Papers 1317, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
  8. Marchand, Joseph & Smeeding, Timothy, 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Working Papers 2016-11, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 10 Sep 2016.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1887. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Mark Fallak)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.