Effects of Health Status on the Labor Supply of Older Adults with Different Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

Based on the panel data of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) collected from 2011 to 2018, this paper establishes a model using the instrumental variables method to investigate the effects of poor health on labor participation, labor hours, agricultural labor participation, agricultural labor hours, off-farm labor participation, and off-farm labor hours of older adults with different economic statuses. This paper conducts an empirical analysis to examine how subjective, self-rated poor health and objective poor health measured using the number of chronic diseases can affect the labor supply of older adults. The study of its influence on labor supply from the perspective of health can help to maintain the labor supply of the aged from the perspective of improving the health of the aged, provide a certain reference for the labor shortage caused by China’s aging society, and enrich the content of health economics. According to the research findings, subjective, self-rated poor health significantly reduces the labor participation of older adults. Although self-rated poor health does not affect the off-farm labor participation of older adults, it significantly reduces the likelihood of older adults engaging in agricultural labor. In addition, self-rated poor health also reduces the overall labor hours and off-farm labor hours of older adults, although no effects were observed on their agricultural labor hours. On the other hand, chronic diseases also reduce the overall likelihood of labor participation for older adults, resulting in significantly lower off-farm labor participation, although no effects were observed on their agricultural labor participation. The number of chronic diseases found in older adults does not affect their off-farm labor hours, but it does increase the hours they invest in agricultural labor.