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ABSTRACT
This study examines the impacts of employment at older ages on individuals’ health using data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA). In assessing the health consequences of employment, a distinction is made between self-employment, which is predominant among the elderly working population, and wage employment. The results demonstrate that the effects on health differ by employment type: self-employment has a negative impact on general health and mental health, whereas wage work has a positive impact. In contrast to wage work, self-employment improves cognitive functioning.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Statistics based on the KloSA indicate that the average ages of effective retirement are 69.7 and 71.3 for salaried employees and the self-employed. Although wage workers exit the labour market earlier than the self-employed on average, both groups remain in the labour market until almost ten years after typical pensionable age. This implies that the two groups are not inherently very different.
2 To construct a comprehensive measure of health, all objective measures of health are exploited in predicting the subjective health index, including a depression measure. Alternatively, the main analysis was conducted using a predicted health index excluding the CESD depression measure but found very little difference between estimation results.
3 Financial situations, which may affect both employment choices and health, are substantially different between wage workers and the self-employed. Several variables on income and wealth were included to address issues related to financial status: a dummy for home ownership and the levels of net assets and household income.