What is the role of health in human capital formation?

Role of health in human capital formation

Health is important in the formation of human capital for the following reasons:

• To perform to the best of one's ability, one must be in good health and thus have the potential to do the work.
• Only a healthy individuals can work effectively and to their full potential.
• A healthy person can work more efficiently and effectively.
• A healthy person can work productively and thus contribute more to the country's economic development.
• The unhealthy individual becomes a liability for the organisation/company and the country.
• Only a healthy person can perform effective work.
• A healthy person can contribute to the economy's growth and development by doing productive work.
• A person's health enables him to realise his full potential and fight illness.
• A worker's efficiency improves when he or she is in good health.
• Good health improves a worker's learning capacity.
• Health does not imply mere survival. It includes not only the individual's physical fitness but also his mental fitness.
• Health is a necessary prerequisite for realising one's well-being.

Poor countries are more likely to be unhealthy, and unhealthy countries are more likely to be poor. Throughout history, increases in income have always been accompanied by increases in health. Furthermore, the world's poorest countries are located in the tropics, an area rife with a tropical diseases. Health is both a type of human capital and an input into the production of other types of human capital. Being unwell/ill reduces one's ability to work productively and/or one's ability and incentives to invest in human capital. When these mechanisms are combined, they imply that poor health equates to lower-income. 

Thus, health is the most important component for the development of human capital and the country.