Friends and health of the workers in Italy

Using a rich cross-sectional dataset, we estimate the effect of meetings with friends on self-perceived health, chronic conditions and limitations in daily activities of Italian employees. We address the self-selection of individuals in labour market using an Heckman selection model. Our main preliminary findings show that meetings with friends is positively correlated with self-perceived health, negatively associated with chronic conditions but not related to limitations in activities of daily living.