Estimating the Health Effects of Retirement

Authors

• John Bound
• Timothy Waidmann

Abstract

We estimate the magnitude of any direct effect of retirement on health. Since
retirement is endogenous to heath, it is not possible to estimate this effect by comparing the health of individuals before and after they retire. As an alternative we will use institutional features of pension systems in the United States and the United Kingdom that are exogenous to the individual to isolate exogenous variation in retirement behavior. Data used will include both vital statistics and longitudinal survey data from both countries. We find no evidence of negative health effects of retirement and some evidence that there may be a positive effect, at least for men.

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Project

• UM07-08: Estimating the Health Effects of Changes in Retirement Age

Paper ID

UM07-08A0807C

Publication Type

Conference Paper

Publication Year

2007