IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8723.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Voluntary and Involuntary Retirement on Mental Health: Evidence from Older Irish Adults

Author

Listed:
  • Mosca, Irene

    (National University of Ireland, Maynooth)

  • Barrett, Alan

    (ESRI, Dublin)

Abstract

The few studies that have attempted to identify the causal effects of retirement on mental health and well-being have provided conflicting evidence. Hence, whether retirement affects mental health positively or negatively is still unclear. Our primary objective is to investigate the impact of retirement on mental health as measured by the 20-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). We use data from the first two waves of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). This is a nationally representative sample of individuals aged 50 and over and living in Ireland. To deal with possible endogeneity problems, we use first-differenced estimation models and control for a broad range of life events occurring between the two waves. These include transition to retirement but also demographic, social, economic and physical health events. As part of the TILDA survey, reasons for retirement are asked. We exploit this information and distinguish between individuals who retired voluntarily, involuntarily or because of own ill health. We find that involuntary, or forced, retirement has a negative and statistically significant effect on mental health. In contrast, we find no effects for voluntary retirement. We also find that retirement due to ill health is negatively associated with mental health.

Suggested Citation

  • Mosca, Irene & Barrett, Alan, 2014. "The Impact of Voluntary and Involuntary Retirement on Mental Health: Evidence from Older Irish Adults," IZA Discussion Papers 8723, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8723
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8723.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maarten Lindeboom & France Portrait & Gerard J. van den Berg, 2002. "An econometric analysis of the mental‐health effects of major events in the life of older individuals," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 505-520, September.
    2. Bound, John & Schoenbaum, Michael & Stinebrickner, Todd R. & Waidmann, Timothy, 1999. "The dynamic effects of health on the labor force transitions of older workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 179-202, June.
    3. Coe, Norma B. & Zamarro, Gema, 2011. "Retirement effects on health in Europe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 77-86, January.
    4. 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.
    5. Ehsan Latif, 2012. "The Impact of Retirement on Health in Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 38(1), pages 15-29, March.
    6. Vincent O'Sullivan & Brian Nolan & Alan Barrett & Cara Dooley, 2014. "Income and Wealth in The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 45(3), pages 329-348.
    7. Courtney C. Coile, 2004. "Health Shocks and Couples' Labor Supply Decisions," NBER Working Papers 10810, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Currie, Janet & Madrian, Brigitte C., 1999. "Health, health insurance and the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 50, pages 3309-3416, Elsevier.
    9. 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.
    10. Gustman, Alan L. & Steinmeier, Thomas L., 2005. "The social security early entitlement age in a structural model of retirement and wealth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 441-463, February.
    11. 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.
    12. Andrew D. Tiedt, 2013. "Cross-National Comparisons of Gender Differences in Late-Life Depressive Symptoms in Japan and the United States," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 68(3), pages 443-454.
    13. 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.
    14. Stefanie Behncke, 2012. "Does retirement trigger ill health?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 282-300, March.
    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. 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. Walsh, Brendan & Doorley, Karina, 2022. "Occupations and health," Papers BP2023/3, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    3. Heller-Sahlgren, Gabriel, 2017. "Retirement blues," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 66-78.
    4. 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.
    5. Boman, Anders, 2015. "Spending time together? Effects on the retirement decision from partner’s labour market status," Working Papers in Economics 618, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    6. Dr. G. Gowsalya & Dr.R.Preetha, 2021. "Social conditions of voluntary retirement scheme opted employees among selected large steel manufacturing organizations," Indian Journal of Commerce and Management Studies, Educational Research Multimedia & Publications,India, vol. 12(3), pages 19-28, September.
    7. Jan Mertl & Lenka Farkačová, 2024. "Supporting Voluntary Prolonged Labour Market Participation Through Fiscally Sustainable Schemes," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 69(240), pages 57-87, January –.

    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. Che, Yi & Li, Xin, 2018. "Retirement and health: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 84-95.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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).
    5. 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.
    6. Peter Eibich, 2014. "The Health Effects of Retirement," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 48, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    7. 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.
    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. Heller-Sahlgren, Gabriel, 2017. "Retirement blues," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 66-78.
    10. Fonseca, Raquel & Moro-Egido, Ana I. & Morin, Hugo, 2024. "Stress and retirement," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    11. Zhu, Rong, 2016. "Retirement and its consequences for women's health in Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 117-125.
    12. 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.
    13. Mohamed Ebeid & Umut Oguzoglu, 2023. "Short‐term effect of retirement on health: Evidence from nonparametric fuzzy regression discontinuity design," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(6), pages 1323-1343, June.
    14. Gorry, Devon & Slavov, Sita Nataraj, 2021. "The effect of retirement on health biomarkers," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    15. Yuanrong Xu, 2023. "The effect of retirement on health and mortality in the United States," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 1-22, June.
    16. Clémentine Garrouste & Elsa Perdrix, 2022. "Is there a consensus on the health consequences of retirement? A literature review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 841-879, September.
    17. Peter Eibich, 2014. "Die gesundheitlichen Folgen des Renteneintritts," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 48, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Thomas Barnay, 2016. "Health, work and working conditions: a review of the European economic literature," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(6), pages 693-709, July.
    19. Leimer, Birgit & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2022. "No “honeymoon phase”: whose health benefits from retirement and when," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    retirement; mental health;

    JEL classification:

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

    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:dp8723. 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.