An Analysis on Danish Micro Data - School of Economics and ...

One of the factors greatly influencing the stock of health is the measure of compliance. Compliance
is defined as follows: “the extent to which a person’s behaviour (in terms of taking medications,
following diets, or executing lifestyle changes) coincides with medical or health advice” (Haynes et
al. (1979). When Galarraga et.al (2006) hypothesize that antidepressants influence the likelihood of
adherence to the medicine for treating HIV, they assume that compliance is improved. Likewise the
present analysis will assume that through an indirect channel the use of antidepressants influences
compliance with the use of MTX, and through that enhances the health status which influences the
labour force participation. Crucial for this assumption is the fact that the patient complies with the
prescription of antidepressants. Whether this is a reasonable hypothesis can be questioned though.
Haynes (1979) finds that mental illness has a negative effect on compliance. It should be noted that
they use a broad definition of mental illness, which also includes schizophrenia, paranoia and
personality disorders that have a negative effect on compliance in particular.
2.4 Summing up theory
This chapter has given a short introduction to the basic theory of labour supply by presenting a
simple, static model. It was mentioned that the model can be extended to include other factors
influencing labour supply, among which health. Thereafter a model for the demand for health was
introduced in order to portray that individuals utility maximize in this respect also. One way of
doing this is by defining their level of compliance with prescribed treatments. Evidence was
presented of how ill health affects labour force participation negatively. The static labour supply
model with extensions to include demand side constraints and individual characteristics forms the
theoretical framework behind the analysis of this thesis. This model is used as a basis for the
estimations of the probability of employment.
3 Survey of the literature
This chapter gives a brief introduction to the empirical research in the field of antidepressants and
employment and also in the field of MTX and employment. Not only is the literature in this field
limited, it is also very diverse. First of all a study by Galarraga et al. (2006) is gone through in
detail, since it provides the motivating article for this thesis and will be followed to a certain extent.
Next, earlier studies on the effect of antidepressant use on employment will be presented in order to
give an idea of what others have found apart from the article by Galarraga et al. (2006). Finally,
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