The impact of health on wages
Economic theoretical models suggest that health, as a component of human capital, affects wages through productivity. However, during economic downturns, circumstances like increased presenteeism and scarcer promotion opportunities can blur this relationship. We use a variety of estimators on Europe...
| Autores: | , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2020 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ddd.uab.cat:318085 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/318085 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1093/oep/gpz033 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being |
| Sumario: | Economic theoretical models suggest that health, as a component of human capital, affects wages through productivity. However, during economic downturns, circumstances like increased presenteeism and scarcer promotion opportunities can blur this relationship. We use a variety of estimators on European individual-level panel data from before and during the Great Recession (GR) to investigate if the health-wage relationship varies with economic conditions. Our results show that, in the period prior to the GR, working-age men and women who are in relatively better health (as measured by a one-unit increase in a health index) have, correspondingly, a 6% and 5% higher hourly wage rate, on average. Instead, during the GR, the positive impact of health on wages disappears. This finding, we argue, could be due to an increase in presenteeism during the GR, which reduced the impact of poor health on wages in the short run. |
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