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The purpose of this study is to analyze the labour force participation response to major health shocks, such as new cancer diagnoses, heart attacks and strokes, in middle-aged to elderly Mexican couples. The data originate from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS), and provides information on how couples coordinate their labour market activities in response to major health shocks. I find that female labour force participation is negatively affected by a major health shock to her spouse. In contrast, there is not a significant effect of a female negative health shock on her spouse’s labour force participation. I find the same result when the labour force participation is split between part-time work and full-time work.

This paper focuses on the correlation between negative health shocks and the households’ shareof wealth held in risky assets. By using U.S. data from the Health and Retirement Study, we try toestablish a link between negative health shocks and financial outcomes such as a household’s probabilityof owning risky assets and share of risky assets held. In our definition of a recent negative health shock,we include: cancer or malignant tumor diagnoses, stroke or transient ischemic attack, and heart attack,coronary heart disease, angina, congestive heart failure, or other heart problems. We find an importantnegative correlation between a negative health shock to the female and her household’s probabilityof owning risky assets and share of risky assets held, respectively. In contrast, we do not find acorresponding statistically significant correlation for males.

The way job loss affects mental health within couples attracts increasing attention. While previous studies focused on the working-age population, this paper investigates how job loss affects spouses’ depressive symptoms in later life. We focus on spouses aged 50 or older, who represent a vulnerable segment of the labor market, and who also have a high prevalence of depressive symptoms. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study, which provides longitudinal information about changes in labor market status and mental health outcomes among respondents and their spouses in the United States. To deal with potential reverse causality problems, we utilize data on job loss resulting from business closures. We find that job loss may affect the levels of depressive symptoms among the spouses of older adults who experience these adverse life course events. The effects are gendered, as women are negatively affected by job losses experienced by their husbands, but we do not observe such harmful effects among men whose wives lose their jobs. We also show how the effects of job loss vary across couples with differing levels of economic resources and health care needs, as well as differential access to health care.

This paper estimates the labor supply response to an increase in the marginal wage rate among middle-aged to elderly Mexican women. Using data from the National Survey of Occupation and Employment, I find that an increase in the marginal wage rate is associated with an increase in worked hours. The results suggest that the marginal wage rate elasticities are greater for older women than for their younger counterparts.