Research On The Effect And Mechanism Of Health Shock On Labor Supply In Rural Middle-aged And Elderly People

China is facing with the more and more serious aging state.Moreover,in order to support their family,more and more rural young people move out of the countryside to cities.For these reasons,the number of rural labor force dropped sharply in these years.For rural areas,Middle-aged and elderly people who participate in work will play an increasingly important role in improving family well-being.Being healthy is the key factor for the rural middle-aged and old people who want to take part in working.If the rural middle-aged and elderly people suddenly suffer from a major illness,will they change their labor supply behavior? Propensity score matching,lag dependent variable model and first-order difference model was used to analyze the change of their labor behavior when facing health shock.It was found that after controlling for the relevant unobserved heterogeneity,the health shock makes the working time per week for the working people among rural people who is over 45 years old reduce significantly,which will reduce 3.16 to 3.70 hours.If suffered a health shock,the possibility for them to choose to continue to work will drop 2.9%,but it was not significant,indicating that the rural middle-aged and old people may have the phenomenon that they will continue to take part in work,though they are suffering a sudden illness.At the same time,the working hours will drop 2.20-2.67 hours per week for rural middle-aged and elderly people who are still working after the impact.The analysis of the impact mechanism of health shock suggested that the working time of those whose work time is less than 40 hours will reduce 5.29-5.50 hours,which is more significant than the people whose work time is over 40 hours.By examining the influence of health shock on several other health indicators,it was found that the mental health is significantly decreased by 5.9%,ADL level is significantly decreased by 6.1%,self-rated good health is significantly decreased by 5.5%.The mental health and objective health level are significantly decreased after people who aged over45 are suffering health shock,which is an important reason for the decrease of labor supply.Moreover,with the growth of age,the weekly working hours also decreased significantly after they suffered a health shock.Whether continue to work or not will also be influenced by age,which show a significant negative effect,but it is very small.It indicated that the rural middle-aged and old people have a tendency to continue to work.Good marital status helps middle-aged and elderly people in rural areas to spend more time to provide labor and stay in the labor market.In the gender sample analysis,it was found that for female people among the rural middle-aged and elderly people,they are not only works more time per week but also they are less likely to giving up a job,which is consistent with the conclusion of relevant studies.Finally,policy suggestions are as follows: the rural middle-aged and elderly people who work less hours should get more attention from policy makers.When formulating new policies,we need to have a targeted combination with reality.On the one hand,we can encourage and guide the middle-aged and elderly people with good working ability to re-employment.On the other hand,for the objective health of the elderly in rural areas continues to deteriorate,it is necessary to provide medical assistance and assistance to the poor families.