Impact of Health on Labour Productivity: Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

Health is an essential element that enables people to live their lives with great potential. A healthy life helps to live with confidence and self-esteem. At the macro level, the fundamental basis of economic development is health. At the micro level, health can effectively ensure productive and rewarding lives for people. Health affects economic growth in many ways, for example, poor health of workers causes a decrease in productivity, on the other hand, due to a healthy increase in nutrition productivity. The central objective of carrying out this study is to investigate the impact of human health on worker productivity. The health proxies used in this study are life expectancy. The indicator of education is enrollment at secondary level; Labor force and gross capital formation are also used as independent variables. The study used a panel of South Asian countries from 1991 to 2019, using the OLS panel, fixed effects model, random effects model, and generalized moments method (GMM). The results show that health and education have a significant and positive influence on productivity. This study recommends that the government of all South Asian countries take essential measures and establish policies related to improving health status and advancing the education system.