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Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages in France

Author

Listed:
  • Didier Blanchet

    (CREST-INSEE - Centre de Recherche en Economie et en Statistique - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE))

  • Eve Caroli

    (IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor - IZA, LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Corinne Prost

    (CREST-INSEE - Centre de Recherche en Economie et en Statistique - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE))

  • Muriel Roger

    (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

France stands out as a country with a low labor force attachment of older workers. A reversal in the trend of French labor participation rates over 50 is under way, partly due to the pension reforms that took place since 1993. The French ageing process is driven by large gains in life expectancy and Pension reforms allocate part of these gains to work rather than to retirement. The implicit assumptions guiding the reforms have been that additional years of life are years with a health status that can be considered reasonably compatible with work. If this is not the case, the idea of sharing these additional years of life between work and retirement is questionable.Considering mortality and health status, we question the fact that the reforms may have gone too far in increasing the retirement age. To tackle these issues, we rely on two different methodological approaches developed in the economic literature: one based on the gap in employment rates across time for given mortality rates; the other using the work/health relationship measured at certain ages to predict the health-related work capacity of older age groups at the same period of time. Both methods aim at providing measures of additional work capacity. This capacity may be defined as a measure of the distance between current retirement ages and what we call the "health barrier", i.e. the age at which health prevents people from working longer.Both methods predict high average levels of additional work capacity. However, the picture becomes somewhat different when disaggregating the results by social groups or education. Our results emphasize the idea that policies aiming at activating any estimated additional work capacity should take into account, when possible, the heterogeneity of health conditions in the population. Moreover, additional work capacity cannot be a general indicator of how much seniors should work. The methods used here indeed leave aside many factors that determine the employment rate of older workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Didier Blanchet & Eve Caroli & Corinne Prost & Muriel Roger, 2016. "Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages in France," PSE Working Papers hal-01331035, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:psewpa:hal-01331035
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    Cited by:

    1. Didier Blanchet & Antoine Bozio & Corinne Prost & Muriel Roger, 2018. "Explaining the Reversal in the Trend of Older Workers’ Employment Rates: The Case of France," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Working Longer, pages 87-115, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Hou, Bo & Wang, Gewei & Wang, Yafeng & Zhao, Yaohui, 2021. "The health capacity to work at older ages in urban China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    older workers; health;

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

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