TY - JOUR
T1 - Too Healthy to Fall Sick? Longevity Expectations and Protective Health Behaviours during the First Wave of COVID-19
AU - Celidoni, Martina
AU - Costa-Font, Joan
AU - Costa Font, Joan
AU - Salmasi, Luca
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Longevity expectations (LE) are subjective assessments of future health status that can influence a number of individual health protective decisions. This is especially true during a pandemic such as COVID-19, as the risk of ill health depends more than ever on such protective decisions. This paper examines the causal effect of LE on some protective health behaviors and a number of decisions regarding forgoing health care. We use data from the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe, and we draw on an instrumental variable strategy exploiting individual level information on parental age at death. Consistent with the too healthy to be sick hypothesis, we find that individuals, exhibiting higher expected longevity, are more likely to engage in protective behaviours, and are less likely to forgo medical treatment. We estimate that a one standard deviation increase in LE increases the probability to comply always with social distancing by 0.6%, to meet people less often by 0.4% and decreases the probability to forgo any medical treatment by 0.6%. Our estimates vary depending on supply side restrictions influencing the availability of health care, as well as individual characteristics such as gender and the presence of preexisting health conditions.
AB - Longevity expectations (LE) are subjective assessments of future health status that can influence a number of individual health protective decisions. This is especially true during a pandemic such as COVID-19, as the risk of ill health depends more than ever on such protective decisions. This paper examines the causal effect of LE on some protective health behaviors and a number of decisions regarding forgoing health care. We use data from the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe, and we draw on an instrumental variable strategy exploiting individual level information on parental age at death. Consistent with the too healthy to be sick hypothesis, we find that individuals, exhibiting higher expected longevity, are more likely to engage in protective behaviours, and are less likely to forgo medical treatment. We estimate that a one standard deviation increase in LE increases the probability to comply always with social distancing by 0.6%, to meet people less often by 0.4% and decreases the probability to forgo any medical treatment by 0.6%. Our estimates vary depending on supply side restrictions influencing the availability of health care, as well as individual characteristics such as gender and the presence of preexisting health conditions.
KW - Europe
KW - SHARE
KW - forgone medical treatment
KW - health behaviours
KW - health capital
KW - instrumental variables
KW - longevity expectations
KW - private information
KW - Europe
KW - SHARE
KW - forgone medical treatment
KW - health behaviours
KW - health capital
KW - instrumental variables
KW - longevity expectations
KW - private information
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/214528
U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.08.015
DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.08.015
M3 - Article
SN - 0167-2681
VL - 2022
SP - 733
EP - 745
JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
ER -