ENEPRI-Forschungsberichte sollen die Ergebnisse von Forschungsprojekten, die in Rahmen des Network of Economic Policy Research Institutes (ENEPRI) durchgeführt werden, in die Öffentlichkeit tragen. Diese Analyse, die Teil der ENEPRI-Projekte ‘Ageing Health and Retirement in the EU’ (AGIR) und ‘Research Training Network on Health, Ageing and Retirement’ (REVISER) ist, befasst sich mit dem Verhältnis zwischen dem Arbeitsmarkt und dem Gesundheitszustand älterer Menschen. Die Analyse von Matthias Deschryvere beinhaltet Informationen von wichtigen Studien, welche in Amerika und Europa durchgeführt wurden, darunter Daten aus neuen Fachartikeln. Sie untersucht die wichtigsten Entwicklungen im Bereich des Mikro-Modelling.
This report entitled „Health and Retirement Decisions: An Update of the Literature“ surveys the relation between the labour supply and the health of the elderly, based on major studies conducted earlier and new literature. Most of the empirical literature on the topic is drawn from American data, although new European datasets have enabled analysis in several EU countries. The paper complements previous surveys in that it includes recent European results and overviews most of the latest developments in micro-modelling issues. The quest for unbiased estimates of the effect of health on retirement is characterised by several challenges. One important challenge is the endogenous character of the relationship between health and retirement. A second challenge concerns the reporting bias to which certain health measures may be prone. The empirical literature surveyed suggests that poor health reduces the capacity to work and has a substantial impact on labour force participation. The exact magnitude, however, is sensitive to both the choice of health measures and the identification assumptions. For that reason a comparison of health effects between different studies is difficult. Nevertheless, what has been proven is that the old assumption that objective health measures are superior to subjective health measures needs to be applied with caution.