IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijhplm/v36y2021i5p1697-1713.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of retirement on mental health

Author

Listed:
  • Lin Xie
  • Yingxi Shen
  • Yuanyang Wu
  • Hualei Yang

Abstract

After 2020, with Chinese baby boomers growing old, more and more working people will step into retirement. What kind of influence retirement behaviour will have on the mental health of the older adults and whether the existing findings of retirement on the mental health of the older adults are applicable to China's current conditions? The answers are related to the improvement of the well being of older adults and future policy orientation. Based on the China Family Tracking Survey data in 2016 and 2018, the paper employed the Ordinary Least Squares, Two Stage Least Squares, and Propensity Score Matching methods to investigate the effect of retirement on the mental health of older adults in China. Results show that retirement can significantly reduce the depression and has a positive impact on the their mental health, and no chronic diseases, poor economic status and shorter education years are conducive to improve mental health of the elderly. Further, the mechanisms differ between the sexes that while exercise is a positive mediator for both sexes, reading and family dinners are positive mediators for men but not for women.

Suggested Citation

  • Lin Xie & Yingxi Shen & Yuanyang Wu & Hualei Yang, 2021. "The impact of retirement on mental health," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 1697-1713, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijhplm:v:36:y:2021:i:5:p:1697-1713
    DOI: 10.1002/hpm.3240
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.3240
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hpm.3240?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Zhang, Quanda & Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa, 2020. "Income inequality and subjective wellbeing: Panel data evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    3. Michael Insler, 2014. "The Health Consequences of Retirement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 195-233.
    4. 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.
    5. Kämpfen, Fabrice & Maurer, Jürgen, 2016. "Time to burn (calories)? The impact of retirement on physical activity among mature Americans," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 91-102.
    6. 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.
    7. Heller-Sahlgren, Gabriel, 2017. "Retirement blues," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 66-78.
    8. Eibich, Peter, 2015. "Understanding the effect of retirement on health: Mechanisms and heterogeneity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-12.
    9. Maria Fleischmann & Baowen Xue & Jenny Head & Deborah Carr, 2020. "Mental Health Before and After Retirement—Assessing the Relevance of Psychosocial Working Conditions: The Whitehall II Prospective Study of British Civil Servants," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(2), pages 403-413.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Maximiliane E. Szinovacz & Adam Davey, 2004. "Retirement Transitions and Spouse Disability: Effects on Depressive Symptoms," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 59(6), pages 333-342.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Min Shao & Jianwei Chen & Chao Ma, 2022. "Research on the Relationship between Chinese Elderly Health Status, Social Security, and Depression," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-10, June.

    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. 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.
    2. Hagen, Johannes, 2016. "What are the Health effects of postponing retirement? An instrumental variable approach," Working Paper Series 2016:11, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    3. Müller, Tobias & Shaikh, Mujaheed, 2018. "Your retirement and my health behavior: Evidence on retirement externalities from a fuzzy regression discontinuity design," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 45-59.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Johannes Hagen, 2018. "The effects of increasing the normal retirement age on health care utilization and mortality," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(1), pages 193-234, January.
    7. Leimer, Birgit & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2022. "No “honeymoon phase”: whose health benefits from retirement and when," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    8. 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.
    9. Pierre-Jean Messe & François-Charles Wolff, 2019. "Healthier when retiring earlier? Evidence from France," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(47), pages 5122-5143, October.
    10. Pedron, Sara & Maier, Werner & Peters, Annette & Linkohr, Birgit & Meisinger, Christine & Rathmann, Wolfgang & Eibich, Peter & Schwettmann, Lars, 2020. "The effect of retirement on biomedical and behavioral risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic disease," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    11. Hans Bloemen & Stefan Hochguertel & Jochem Zweerink, 2017. "The causal effect of retirement on mortality: Evidence from targeted incentives to retire early," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 204-218, December.
    12. 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.
    13. Byrne, Dominic & Kwak, Do Won & Tang, Kam Ki & Yazbeck, Myra, 2023. "Spillover effects of retirement: Does health vulnerability matter?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    14. Chiara Ardito & Roberto Leombruni & David Blane & Angelo d’Errico, 2020. "To Work or Not to Work? The Effect of Higher Pension Age on Cardiovascular Health," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 399-434, July.
    15. 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.
    16. Bertoni, Marco & Brunello, Giorgio & Mazzarella, Gianluca, 2018. "Does postponing minimum retirement age improve healthy behaviors before retirement? Evidence from middle-aged Italian workers," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 215-227.
    17. 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.
    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. 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.
    20. Rose, Liam, 2020. "Retirement and health: Evidence from England," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    More about this item

    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:bla:ijhplm:v:36:y:2021:i:5:p:1697-1713. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0749-6753 .

    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.