Mental Health, Labor Participation And Productivity

This paper investigates how mental health can affect labor participation and productivity as well as how we can improve the mental health level from the perspective of human capital.The mechanisms of how mental health can affect the labor participation and labor output are analyzed on the basis of literature review elaborated the human capital characteristics of mental health. It shows that mental health has a significant influence on labor participation and productivity with the results of the empirical research on the survey data in China(CHRALS)、Japan (JSTAR) and Korean (KLOS A).People with higher level of mental health have a higher tendency of labor participation and higher productivity. The society can improve the social labor output by improving the social mental health level through various channels. The main findings of the study are as follows:(1) Mental health disorders has been becoming a prominent problem in human society, which cause serious damage to the quality of life and social production. Researches on the influence of social factors on mental health and its impact on labor participation and output have been conming out more and more recently. On the basis of literature review, this paper puts forward that the mental health can improve labor participation and output by three channels:(1) Mental health status can affect the investment efficiency of the other forms of human capital;(2) Mental health is essential for acquisiting and using of social capital effectively;(3) Mental health status determines the effect of motivation in the workplace.(2) The empirical studies show that mental health can significantly affect labor participation. The impact of mental health on the labor participation is more than body health totally. In Korean, study shows that body health does not affect labor participation significantly. With the so far improvement of physical health as well as the change of the nature of work and working environment, this feature will be more obvious. The influence of mental health on the labor participation is also stronger then education status. The educational level does not play an significant role on labor participation in Japan as well as in Kroean, but the rate of labor participation for Kroean woman will drop with the increasing of the education level. The non-farm labor participation of the rural citizens in China increases with the increasing of their education level as well as their physical health, which is not shown for the non-rural citizens. So we can conclude that mental health does a more important role in labor participation than education and physical health do.(3) The empirical studies aso show that mental health plays a significant role in labor productivity. It shows that mental unhealthy workers has a productivity loss by18%, which is15%for Japanese and21%for Chinese respectively. The role of mental health is more important for the self-employed than the employee. The value of mental health appears more prominent in the high pressure and uncertainty environment. Results show that the impact of physical health on productivity will be weaken with the change of job characteristics and the natural of work, while the role of mental health as well as education will be strengthen.(4) Characteristics and influence factors of mental health have more common for Chinese, Japanese and Kroean, and we get the similar results with those literatures in the field. Working status, living conditions, social capital, marital status, economic status, and physical health are all closely with human’s mental health. So we can improve social mental health level by increasing these factors. Gender itself does not play an important role on mental health. The gender difference of social and economic status is the main reason that put the women into a serious mental health position. We can improve women’s mental health effectively by improving the related social environmental factors. This is one of the important findings of this study. Another interesting finding of this study is that the relationship between age and mental health is uncertain. On the one hand, the older the elderly, the worse of the physical health, the more setbacks in life, the less of social support and network, which are all harmful to mental health. On the other hand, the older the elderly, the more life experience and the higher ability of phychological adjustment, which are play a positive role in mental health care and improvement. In general, many of the important factors affecting mental health are related to social and environmental factors. Individuals, families and society can improve the mental health level with proper interventions.