Age and Work-Related Health: Insights from the UK Labour Force Survey

Data from the UK Labour Force Survey (LFS) are used to examine two methodological issues in the analysis of the relationship between age and work-related health. First, the LFS is unusual in that it asks work-related health questions to those who are not currently employed. This facilitates a more representative analysis than that which is constrained to focus only on those currently in work. Second, information in the LFS facilitates a comparison of work-related health problems that stem from current employment to a more encompassing measure that includes those related to a former job. We find that accounting for each of these sources of bias increases the age work-related health risk gradient, and suggest that ignoring such effects will underestimate the work-related health implications of current policies to extend working lives.