Is Work Bad for Health? The Role of Constraint versus Choice

Most of the evidence on the negative health impact of work found in the literature is based on situations in which workers have essentially no control over the amount of work they provide, both at the intensive and extensive margins.

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on the impact of work on health. We consider work along two dimensions: (i) the intensive margin, i.e. how many hours an individual works when employed and (ii) the extensive margin, i.e. whether an individual is in employment or not. We show that most of the evidence on the negative health impact of work found in the literature is based on situations in which workers have essentially no control (no choice) over the amount of work they provide. In essence, what is detrimental to health is not so much work per se as much as the gap which may exist between the actual and the desired amount of work, both at the intensive and extensive margins.