(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Fatal Attraction? Access to Early Retirement and Mortality
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp5160.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fatal Attraction? Access to Early Retirement and Mortality

Author

Listed:
  • Kuhn, Andreas

    (Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training)

  • Wuellrich, Jean-Philippe

    (University of Zurich)

  • Zweimüller, Josef

    (University of Zurich)

Abstract

We estimate the causal effect of early retirement on mortality for blue-collar workers. To overcome the problem of endogenous selection, we exploit an exogenous change in unemployment insurance rules in Austria that allowed workers in eligible regions to withdraw from the workforce up to 3.5 years earlier than those in non-eligible regions. For males, instrumental-variable estimates show a significant 2.4 percentage points (about 13%) increase in the probability of dying before age 67. We do not find any adverse effect of early retirement on mortality for females. Death causes indicate a significantly higher incidence of cardiovascular disorders among eligible workers, suggesting that changes in health-related behavior explain increased mortality among male early retirees.

Suggested Citation

  • Kuhn, Andreas & Wuellrich, Jean-Philippe & Zweimüller, Josef, 2010. "Fatal Attraction? Access to Early Retirement and Mortality," IZA Discussion Papers 5160, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp5160.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lalive, Rafael, 2008. "How do extended benefits affect unemployment duration A regression discontinuity approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 785-806, February.
    2. Michael Baker & Mark Stabile & Catherine Deri, 2004. "What Do Self-Reported, Objective, Measures of Health Measure?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(4).
    3. Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2001. "Evaluating an Innovative Redundancy-Retraining Project: The Austrian Steel Foundation," IZA Discussion Papers 277, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Coe, N.B. & Lindeboom, M., 2008. "Does Retirement Kill You? Evidence from Early Retirement Windows," Other publications TiSEM 749af81e-10f6-4c32-b9ae-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Kelly Bedard & Olivier Deschênes, 2006. "The Long-Term Impact of Military Service on Health: Evidence from World War II and Korean War Veterans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 176-194, March.
    6. Behncke S, 2009. "How Does Retirement Affect Health?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 09/11, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    7. Lalive, Rafael & Zweimuller, Josef, 2004. "Benefit entitlement and unemployment duration: The role of policy endogeneity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2587-2616, December.
    8. Brockmann, Hilke & Müller, Rolf & Helmert, Uwe, 2009. "Time to retire - Time to die? A prospective cohort study of the effects of early retirement on long-term survival," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 160-164, July.
    9. Angrist, Joshua D, 2001. "Estimations of Limited Dependent Variable Models with Dummy Endogenous Regressors: Simple Strategies for Empirical Practice," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(1), pages 2-16, January.
    10. Johnston, David W. & Lee, Wang-Sheng, 2009. "Retiring to the good life? The short-term effects of retirement on health," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 8-11, April.
    11. Balia, Silvia & Jones, Andrew M., 2008. "Mortality, lifestyle and socio-economic status," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-26, January.
    12. Helmut Hofer & Reinhard Koman, 2006. "Social security and retirement incentives in Austria," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 33(5), pages 285-313, December.
    13. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    14. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    15. Abadie, Alberto, 2003. "Semiparametric instrumental variable estimation of treatment response models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 231-263, April.
    16. Susann Rohwedder & Robert J. Willis, 2010. "Mental Retirement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 119-138, Winter.
    17. Angrist, Joshua D., 1991. "Grouped-data estimation and testing in simple labor-supply models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2-3), pages 243-266, February.
    18. Dwyer, Debra Sabatini & Mitchell, Olivia S., 1999. "Health problems as determinants of retirement: Are self-rated measures endogenous?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 173-193, April.
    19. Daniel Sullivan & Till von Wachter, 2009. "Job Displacement and Mortality: An Analysis Using Administrative Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1265-1306.
    20. Mari Rege & Kjetil Telle & Mark Votruba, 2009. "The Effect of Plant Downsizing on Disability Pension Utilization," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(4), pages 754-785, June.
    21. Marcel Kerkhofs & Maarten Lindeboom, 1997. "Age related health dynamics and changes in labour market status," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(4), pages 407-423, July.
    22. Rudolf Winter‐Ebmer, 1998. "Potential Unemployment Benefit Duration and Spell Length: Lessons from a Quasi‐Experiment in Austria," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 60(1), pages 33-45, February.
    23. Marcus Eliason & Donald Storrie, 2009. "Does Job Loss Shorten Life?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    24. Josef Zweim�ller & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer & Rafael Lalive & Andreas Kuhn & Jean-Philippe Wuellrich & Oliver Ruf & Simon B�chi, 2009. "Austrian social security database," IEW - Working Papers 410, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
      • Josef Zweimüller & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer & Rafael Lalive & Andreas Kuhn & Jean-Philippe Wuellrich & Oliver Ruf & Simon Büchi, 2009. "Austrian Social Security Database," NRN working papers 2009-03, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    25. Coe, Norma B. & Zamarro, Gema, 2011. "Retirement effects on health in Europe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 77-86, January.
    26. Coe, Norma B. & Zamarro, Gema, 2011. "Retirement effects on health in Europe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, pages 77-86.
    27. Hanna van Solinge & Kène Henkens, 2007. "Involuntary Retirement: The Role of Restrictive Circumstances, Timing, and Social Embeddedness," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 62(5), pages 295-303.
    28. Manfred Koch & Christian Thimann, 1999. "From Generosity to Sustainability: The Austrian Pension System and Options for its Reform," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 21-38, March.
    29. John Bound, 1991. "Self-Reported Versus Objective Measures of Health in Retirement Models," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(1), pages 106-138.
    30. Disney, Richard & Emmerson, Carl & Wakefield, Matthew, 2006. "Ill health and retirement in Britain: A panel data-based analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 621-649, July.
    31. Dhaval Dave & R. Inas Rashad & Jasmina Spasojevic, 2008. "The Effects of Retirement on Physical and Mental Health Outcomes," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(2), pages 497-523, October.
    32. John Bound & Timothy Waidmann, 2007. "Estimating the Health Effects of Retirements," Working Papers wp168, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    33. Kevin Neuman, 2008. "Quit Your Job and Get Healthier? The Effect of Retirement on Health," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 177-201, June.
    34. Kerwin Kofi Charles, 2002. "Is Retirement Depressing?: Labor Force Inactivity and Psychological Well-Being in Later Life," NBER Working Papers 9033, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. repec:bla:obuest:v:60:y:1998:i:1:p:33-45:a is not listed on IDEAS
    36. Angrist, Joshua D, 2001. "Estimations of Limited Dependent Variable Models with Dummy Endogenous Regressors: Simple Strategies for Empirical Practice: Reply," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(1), pages 27-28, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kuhn, Andreas & Staubli, Stefan & Wuellrich, Jean-Philippe & Zweimüller, Josef, 2020. "Fatal attraction? Extended unemployment benefits, labor force exits, and mortality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    2. Aspen Gorry & Devon Gorry & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2018. "Does retirement improve health and life satisfaction?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(12), pages 2067-2086, December.
    3. Nikolov Plamen & Adelman Alan, 2018. "Short-Run Health Consequences of Retirement and Pension Benefits: Evidence from China," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 1-27, December.
    4. Martina Celidoni & Vincenzo Rebba, 2017. "Healthier lifestyles after retirement in Europe? Evidence from SHARE," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 18(7), pages 805-830, September.
    5. Gorry, Devon & Slavov, Sita Nataraj, 2021. "The effect of retirement on health biomarkers," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    6. Motegi, H. & Nishimura, Y. & Oikawa, M., 2016. "Retirement and Cognitive Decline: Evidence from Global Aging Data," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 16/11, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    7. Yoshinori Nishimura & Masato Oikawa & Hiroyuki Motegi, 2018. "What Explains The Difference In The Effect Of Retirement On Health? Evidence From Global Aging Data," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 792-847, July.
    8. Hiroyuki Motegi & Yoshinori Nishimura & Kazuyuki Terada, 2016. "Does Retirement Change Lifestyle Habits?," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 169-191, June.
    9. Zhu, Rong, 2016. "Retirement and its consequences for women's health in Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 117-125.
    10. Eibich, Peter, 2015. "Understanding the Effect of Retirement on Health: Mechanisms and Heterogeneity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 43, pages 1-12.
    11. Bassanini, Andrea & Caroli, Eve, 2014. "Is work bad for health? The role of constraint vs choice," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 1402, CEPREMAP.
    12. Thomas Barnay & Eric Defebvre, 2018. "Retired, at last? The short-term impact of retirement on health status in France," TEPP Working Paper 2018-01, TEPP.
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12483 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Stefanie Behncke, 2012. "Does retirement trigger ill health?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 282-300, March.
    15. Eduardo Fé & Bruce Hollingsworth, 2016. "Short- and long-run estimates of the local effects of retirement on health," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(4), pages 1051-1067, October.
    16. Leimer, Birgit & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2022. "No “honeymoon phase”: whose health benefits from retirement and when," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    17. Mattia Filomena & Matteo Picchio, 2023. "Retirement and health outcomes in a meta‐analytical framework," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1120-1155, September.
    18. Eyjólfsdóttir, H.S. & Baumann, I. & Agahi, N. & Fritzell, J. & Lennartsson, C., 2019. "Prolongation of working life and its effect on mortality and health in older adults: Propensity score matching," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 77-86.
    19. Michael Insler, 2014. "The Health Consequences of Retirement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 195-233.
    20. Kuhn, Michael & Wrzaczek, Stefan & Prskawetz, Alexia & Feichtinger, Gustav, 2015. "Optimal choice of health and retirement in a life-cycle model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PA), pages 186-212.
    21. Asal Pilehvari & Wen You & Xu Lin, 2023. "Retirement’s impact on health: what role does social network play?," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 1-20, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    early retirement; mortality; premature death; health behavior; endogeneity; instrumental variable;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5160. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.