A Study Of The Effect Of Health Changes On Labor Force Participation Of Middle-Aged And Older Adults

After entering the 21 st century,the process of population aging in China has accelerated significantly.This phenomenon has had a profound impact on the social and economic development of China and the living standards of the people.Aging not only means more pressure on the social security system,but also involves many fields such as education,medical care,employment and consumption.Therefore,to meet the challenges of aging,it is necessary for the government,enterprises and society to work together to formulate scientific and reasonable policies and measures to promote the optimization of the population structure,improve the quality of life and social participation of the elderly,and achieve sustainable development.The negative impact of population aging on society is determined by when older people stop their labor force participation.Health has been widely recognized as an important human capital,and health is an important factor influencing labor participation behavior.Based on a review of existing literature and related theories,this paper investigates the impact of health changes on labor force participation of middle-aged and older adults over55 years of age in China.A lagged dependent variable model and a propensity score matching model are used to study the effects of health changes on labor force participation behavior and labor force participation time among middle-aged and older adults.The study shows that(1)deterioration in health status significantly reduces the willingness of middleaged and older adults to participate in labor.The deterioration of self-rated health leads to a decrease of about 10 percentage points in the probability of working in the current period,and the decrease of self-care ability leads to a decrease of 8 percentage points in the labor force participation of middle-aged and older adults in the current period.(2)Deterioration in health status decreases labor force participation time of middle-aged and older adults to different degrees.For middle-aged and older adults who were still working in period t,the decline in self-rated health would result in a significant decrease of 1.84 hours per week in period t,and the decline in self-care ability would result in a decrease of 1 hour.(3)There are gender and urban-rural differences in the effects of health changes on labor force participation among middle-aged and older adults(4)The lagged dependent variable model and the propensity score matching model yield somewhat different results.Using the lagged dependent variable model significantly underestimates the negative effect of health deterioration on the labor hours of middle-aged and older adults and overestimates the negative effect of health deterioration on middle-aged and older adults’ withdrawal from the labor market.Based on the above findings,this paper proposes policy recommendations related to strengthening chronic disease protection and improving the social security system to improve the health of middle-aged and elderly people;coordinating the distribution of regional medical resources;strengthening and improving the medical insurance system;and improving the human capital level of middle-aged and elderly people to encourage them to participate in social and economic construction.