The Impact Of Health On The Supply Of Labor Time Of Middle-age And Elderly People

Our country has entered the aging society in1999, but the aging process willaccelerate in the future. In the background of "old before getting rich" and "notprepared before the old", the relationship between health and labor forceparticipation is worth paying attention among economists. In this paper, I use theChina Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey2008pre-survey data and2012follow-up survey data, using a panel Tobit and OLS methods to study the effects ofthe health of middle-age and elderly labor on their supply of labor time. Thefollowing are the results of my study:(1) From the entire sample, the health status have a significant impact on middle-ageand elderly labor’s supply of labor time;(2) From the point of view of work, the health status have an considerable effect onthe supply of labor time of middle-age and elderly farming labor;(3) From the point of view of gender, the health status have a significant impact onthe supply of labor time of male and female middle-age and elderly labor, but itsimpact on male is greater than on female, particularly farming male labor;(4) The impact of the health status on the supply of labor time of people who is60or above60is far greater than that of people who is under60;(5) The impact of labor compensation on the supply of labor time is considerablyproportional. Therein, the impact of labor compensation on employed workforceis bigger than on farmer and self-employed persons. The impact of laborcompensation on female labor is greater than male labor. The impact of laborcompensation on elderly labor is more considerable than on middle-age labor;(6) It is non-linear relationship between age and supply of labor time, as an inverted"U" shape;(7) Residence registration has an significant impact on middle-age and elderlylabor’s supply of labor time, which may be relevant to China’s current householdregistration system. Workforce who own non-agriculture household can enjoy arelatively sound social security system.Therefore, increasing the investment of medical and health services for grassroots,especially for the rural areas, improving the health of residents, and raising theproportion of labor compensation in national income distribution are all in favor ofmiddle-aged labor force increasing their labor supply and income level.