Keywords

health insurance, labor market outcomes, employment effects

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the literature linking health, health insurance and labor market outcomes such as wages, earnings, employment, hours, occupational choice, job turnover, retirement, and the structure of employment. The ®rst part of the paper focuses on the relationship between health and labor market outcomes. The empirical literature surveyed suggests that poor health reduces the capacity to work and has substantive effects on wages, labor force participation and job choice. The exact magnitudes, however, are sensitive to both the choice of health measures and to identi®cation assumptions. The second part of the paper considers the link between health insurance and labor market outcomes. The empirical literature here suggests that access to health insurance has important effects on both labor force participation and job choice; the link between health insurance and wages is less clear. q1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Original Publication Citation

“Health, Health Insurance and the Labor Market.” 1999. In Orley Ashenfelter and David Card, editors, Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 3, Amsterdam: Elsevier-North Holland, pp. 3309-3415 (with Janet Currie).

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

1999

Publisher

Handbook of Labor Economics

Language

English

College

Marriott School of Business

Department

Finance

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

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