Is Work Bad for Health? The Role of Constraint vs Choice

Andrea Bassanini and Eve Caroli

No 7891, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper reviews the literature on the impact of work on health. We consider work along two dimensions: (i) the intensive margin, i.e. how many hours an individual works and (ii) the extensive margin, i.e. whether an individual is in employment or not, independent of the number of hours worked. We show that most of the evidence on the negative health impact of work found in the literature is based on situations in which workers have essentially no control (no choice) over the amount of work they provide. In essence, what is detrimental to health is not so much work per se as much as the gap which may exist between the actual and the desired amount of work, both at the intensive and extensive margins.

Keywords: job loss; hours worked; retirement; work; health; individual choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I31 J22 J28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2014-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Published - published in: Annals of Economics and Statistics, 2015, 119-120, 13-37

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Related works:
Working Paper: Is work bad for health? The role of constraint vs choice (2017)
Working Paper: Is work bad for health? The role of constraint vs choice (2014)
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