Deep Learning Approaches to Modeling the Causal Impact of Universal Health Coverage on Labor Force Dynamics and Economic Productivity

Abstract

Universal health coverage has emerged as a critical policy instrument in contemporary economic development, fundamentally altering the relationship between public health infrastructure and macroeconomic performance across diverse national contexts. The implementation of comprehensive healthcare systems represents one of the most significant structural reforms undertaken by developing economies in recent decades, with far-reaching implications for labor market dynamics, human capital formation, and aggregate productivity growth. This paper presents a novel deep learning framework for modeling the causal impact of universal health coverage on labor force participation, employment transitions, and economic productivity using longitudinal data from multiple developing economies. We develop a hybrid neural architecture combining convolutional layers for spatial health infrastructure mapping with recurrent networks for temporal labor market modeling, enabling the capture of complex nonlinear relationships between healthcare accessibility and economic outcomes. Our approach incorporates adversarial training mechanisms to address selection bias and confounding variables that traditionally challenge causal inference in health economics research. The model architecture employs variational autoencoders to learn latent representations of regional health system characteristics while simultaneously predicting labor force transitions through attention-based sequence modeling. Empirical validation across seven countries demonstrates that universal health coverage implementation generates substantial increases in labor force participation rates, with effects ranging from 8.3\% to 15.7\% over five-year observation periods. The deep learning framework reveals heterogeneous treatment effects across demographic groups and geographic regions, identifying healthcare infrastructure density as the primary mediating mechanism. Results indicate that productivity gains emerge through reduced health-related work interruptions and enhanced human capital accumulation, with aggregate economic benefits exceeding implementation costs by factors ranging from 2.1 to 4.6 across studied economies.