Does Commuting Affect Health?

Annemarie Künn-Nelen

No 9031, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper analyzes the relation between commuting time and health in the United Kingdom. I focus on four different types of health outcomes: subjective health measures, objective health measures, health behavior, and health care utilization. Fixed effect models are estimated with British Household Panel Survey data. I find that whereas objective health and health behavior are barely affected by commuting time, subjective health measures are clearly lower for people who commute longer. A longer commuting time is, moreover, related to more visits to the general practitioner. Effects turn out to be more pronounced for women and for commuters driving a car. For women, commuting time is also negatively related to regular exercise and positively to calling in sick.

Keywords: health; commuting time; transportation mode (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2015-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Published - published in: Health Economics, 2016, 25(8), 984-1004

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