Does commuting affect health?

This paper analyzes the relation between commuting time and specific health outcomes using the GSOEP and the BHPS. Both countries are in the top three of European countries in which commuting time is largest. First, we analyze whether commuting time affects specific health outcomes. We analyze both subjective health outcomes like health satisfaction and health status, and objective measures like the number of doctor visits and whether or not someone has health problems. Second, we analyze whether the relation between commuting time and health is heterogeneous across different commuting modes. We use fixed effects models to control for time-invariant idiosyncratic effects. For Germany, we find that commuting time is negatively related with health satisfaction in the short run and with health status in the long run. For the United Kingdom, we find that those commuting more minutes, have a lower health satisfaction, health status, and have a larger number of doctor visits and a higher probability of being involved in an accident. In the United Kingdom, we find decreasing marginal effects. On average, we find for both Germany and the United Kingdom, that health outcomes are worse for those commuting by public transportation than by car. Walking and biking are found to result in better health outcomes compared to car drivers in both countries. JEL codes: I1, R41