Une illustration du lien entre âge, travail et santé en fin de carrière dans les pays économiquement développés

In order to counteract the effects of population aging, greater labour force participation of older adults is desired in many economically developed countries. Health, however, tends to deteriorate with age, which can become an obstacle for higher participation. Using data on objective measures of physical health from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and two of its sister studies, we examine the link between age, labour force participation and health at older ages. For this purpose we present a series of heat maps. We find that the form of the link between health and labour force participation is relatively constant between countries and over time, and is robust to the choice of the health measure. In two countries (or groups of countries) studied, over a period of about seven years, the people who contributed the most to the increase in participation rates were those in poorer health. We discuss this development against a background of changes in pension programs, particularly those targeting disabled people.