contents go

KDI - Korea Development Institute

KDI - Korea Development Institute

SITEMAP

HOT ISSUE

KDI JEP Can Healthy Aging Boost the Labor Supply? Evidence from Korea February 28, 2026

KDI JEP
KDI JEP KOR Can Healthy Aging Boost the Labor Supply? Evidence from Korea

February 28, 2026

  • KDI
    BERTRAND GRUSS

This paper examines the role of ‘healthy aging’ in boosting labor supply in Korea. First, we use microdata from surveys to assess whether there is evidence that the physical abilities of individuals aged 50 years and above have been improving over successive cohorts. Second, we investigate whether health improvements among older workers influence their labor market outcomes, such as the decision to supply labor or to retire. We use an instrumental variable approach to enable causal inference, proxying exogenous variations in health with the incidence of certain chronic diseases. Our findings reveal that (i) physical health indicators have improved on average across birth cohorts, providing evidence in favor of ‘healthy aging’ in Korea, and (ii) better health increases the probability of participating in the labor force and postponing retirement. Overall, our results suggest that healthy aging increased the labor supply of older individuals in Korea by around 1.9 percentage points per year during the period 2006-20. The results for Korea are qualitatively comparable but quantitatively somewhat stronger than those for comparator Asian countries.

Contents
 I. Introduction
 II. Literature
 III. Empirical Strategy
 IV. Evidence of Healthy Aging 
 V. Effect of Health on Labor Market Status
 VI. Concluding Remarks
 APPENDIX
 REFERENCES
Join our Newsletter

World's Leading Think Tank, Korea Development Institute

Security code

We reject unauthorized collection of email addresses posted on our website by using email address collecting programs or other technical devices. To access the email address, please type in the characters exactly as they appear in the box below.

captcha
KDI Staff Information

Please enter the security code to prevent unauthorized information collection.

KDI Staff Information

Please check the contact information.

OK
KDI Staff Information

Please check the contact information.

OK