Impactos do estado de saúde sobre os rendimentos individuals no Brasil

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to estimate the impact of health conditions on the earnings of Brazilians. We have identified three channels through which health conditions affect workers' earnings: labour force participation, hourly wages and weekly hours worked. A measure of the welfare reduction due to poor health conditions was created by aggregating individual losses. Individuals were classified as sick or healthy according to two criteria. Firstly, the clinical criterion which was based on the presence of chronic diseases or problems with physical mobility. Secondly, the subjective criterion which was based on the health self assessment. Each Brazilian individual looses from R$6,30 till R$ 16,89 per week depending on individual characteristics. In relative terms these aggregated losses represent from 1.5% till 4.7% of the Brazilian GDP. The data base used in this work were PNAD/1998 (Brazilian National Household Survey). In 1998, the PNAD had an additional survey about health.

Keywords

• health
• earnings
• welfare