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This paper investigates whether or not suffering a health shock, and becoming eligible for Social Security, have a joint effect on labor supply. Despite millions of people experiencing both of these events each year, no paper has focused exclusively on the joint effect that these events may have on work outcomes. This is surprising given that experiencing a health shock may impact on how a worker responds to becoming eligible for Social Security. With data from the Health and Retirement Study, I model weekly hours of work as a function of health shocks, Social Security eligibility, and their interaction. I find that this interaction leads to a 3 to 4 hour reduction in weekly hours of work for men but has no effect for women. The results are robust to using different work outcomes, age groups, health shock definitions, subgroups, as well as falsification and placebo tests. The results appear to be driven by men who would have had to return to work with impaired health. Policies that promote a more flexible work situation for older men may alleviate these problems in the future.

This paper investigates the relationship between cancer diagnosis and the labor supply of employed men over the age of 65. While almost 60% of male cancers are diagnosed in men over the age of 65, no previous research has examined the effect that cancer has on this age group, which is surprising given the relevance of this group to public policy. With data from the Health and Retirement Study, I show that cancer has a significant negative effect on the labor supply of these workers. Using a combination of linear regression models and propensity score matching, I find that respondents who are diagnosed with cancer work 3 fewer hours per week than their non-cancer counterparts. They are also 10 percentage points more likely to stop working. This reduction seems to be driven by a deterioration in physical and mental health.

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