IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mrr/papers/wp301.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Retirement Induced through Social Security Pension Eligibility Influence Subjective Well-being? A Cross-Country Comparison

Author

Listed:
  • Arie Kapteyn

    (University of Southern California, Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research)

  • Jinkook Lee

    (RAND)

  • Gema Zamarro

    (University of Southern California, Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research)

Abstract

How does retirement influence subjective well-being? Some studies suggest retirement does not affect subjective well-being or may improve it. Others suggest it adversely affects it. This paper aims at advancing our understanding of the effect of retirement on subjective well-being by (1) using longitudinal data to tease out the retirement effect from age and cohort differences; (2) using instrumental variables to address potential reverse causation of subjective well-being on retirement decisions; and (3) conducting cross-country analyses, exploiting differences in eligibility ages for retirement benefits across countries and within countries. We use panel data from the US Health and Retirement Study and the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. This allows us to use a quasi-experimental approach where variations in public pension eligibility due to country and cohort specific retirement ages help identify retirement effects. For both the U.S. and Europe we find that retirement is associated with higher levels of depression. However, when we use instrumental variables we find the opposite result. Retirement induced through Social Security pension eligibility is found to have a positive effect, reducing depression symptoms, although only marginally significant for the U.S. when considering the depression indicator. Retirement is not found to have a significant effect on life satisfaction measures for either the U.S. or Europe.

Suggested Citation

  • Arie Kapteyn & Jinkook Lee & Gema Zamarro, 2013. "Does Retirement Induced through Social Security Pension Eligibility Influence Subjective Well-being? A Cross-Country Comparison," Working Papers wp301, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    • Handle: RePEc:mrr:papers:wp301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/Papers/pdf/wp301.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andries De Grip & Maarten Lindeboom & Raymond Montizaan, 2012. "Shattered Dreams: The Effects of Changing the Pension System Late in the Game," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(559), pages 1-25, March.
    2. Angus Deaton, 2008. "Income, Health, and Well-Being around the World: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 53-72, Spring.
    3. Richard Easterlin, 2005. "Feeding the Illusion of Growth and Happiness: A Reply to Hagerty and Veenhoven," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 429-443, December.
    4. Gary V. Engelhardt & Jonathan Gruber & Cynthia D. Perry, 2005. "Social Security and Elderly Living Arrangements: Evidence from the Social Security Notch," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(2).
    5. 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.
    6. Viola Angelini & Agar Brugiavini & Guglielmo Weber, 2009. "Ageing and unused capacity in Europe: is there an early retirement trap? [‘The strategic bequest motive: evidence from SHARE’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 24(59), pages 463-508.
    7. Zaidi, Asghar & Grech, Aaron George & Fuchs, Michael, 2006. "Pension policy in EU25 and its possible impact on elderly poverty," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6225, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Butterworth, Peter & Gill, Sarah C. & Rodgers, Bryan & Anstey, Kaarin J. & Villamil, Elena & Melzer, David, 2006. "Retirement and mental health: Analysis of the Australian national survey of mental health and well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(5), pages 1179-1191, March.
    9. Coe, Norma B. & Zamarro, Gema, 2011. "Retirement effects on health in Europe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 77-86, January.
    10. Tinbergen, Jan, 1991. "On the measurement of welfare," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1-2), pages 7-13, October.
    11. 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. Giovanis, Eleftherios & Ozdamar, Oznur, 2018. "Health status, mental health and air quality: evidence from pensioners in Europe," MPRA Paper 86483, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Dusanee Kesavayuth & Robert E Rosenman & Vasileios Zikos, 2022. "Leaving the labor market: Exit routes, personality traits and well-being," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(3), pages 1-20, March.
    3. Lucille Aba Abruquah & Xiuxia Yin & Ya Ding, 2019. "Old Age Support in Urban China: The Role of Pension Schemes, Self-Support Ability and Intergenerational Assistance," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-17, May.
    4. Adhikari, Tamanna & Greyling, Talita & Rossouw, Stephanie, 2021. "The ugly truth about social welfare payments and households' subjective well-being," GLO Discussion Paper Series 883, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Liisa-Maria Palomäki, 2019. "Does It Matter How You Retire? Old-Age Retirement Routes and Subjective Economic Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(2), pages 733-751, April.
    6. Kadir Atalay & Garry Barrett, 2022. "Retirement routes and the well-being of retirees," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(5), pages 2751-2784, November.
    7. Ahmed, Rifaan & Kesavayuth, Dusanee & Zikos, Vasileios, 2018. "Does being smarter make you happier? Evidence from Europe," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 55-67.

    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. Raquel Fonseca & Arie Kapteyn & Jinkook Lee & Gema Zamarro, 2015. "Does Retirement Make You Happy? A Simultaneous Equations Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Insights in the Economics of Aging, pages 339-372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Michele Belloni & Elena Meschi & Giacomo Pasini, 2016. "The Effect on Mental Health of Retiring During the Economic Crisis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(S2), pages 126-140, November.
    4. 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.
    5. Bertoni, Marco & Brunello, Giorgio & Da Re, Filippo, 2023. "Pension reforms, longer working horizons and depression. Does the risk of automation matter?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    6. Zhao, Meng & Konishi, Yoshifumi & Noguchi, Haruko, 2017. "Retiring for better health? Evidence from health investment behaviors in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 56-63.
    7. 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).
    8. 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).
    9. Nielsen, Nick Fabrin, 2019. "Sick of retirement?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 133-152.
    10. 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.
    11. Fabrizio Mazzonna & Franco Peracchi, 2014. "Unhealthy retirement? Evidence of occupation heterogeneity," IdEP Economic Papers 1401, USI Università della Svizzera italiana.
    12. Heller-Sahlgren, Gabriel, 2017. "Retirement blues," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 66-78.
    13. Fabrizio Mazzonna & Franco Peracchi, 2017. "Unhealthy Retirement?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(1), pages 128-151.
    14. Danzer, Alexander M. & Danzer, Natalia, 2016. "Pension generosity and mental wellbeing: The effect of eradicating poverty at old-age," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145910, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Bauer, Ann Barbara & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2021. "Worsening workers' health by lowering retirement age: The malign consequences of a benign reform," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. Hessel, Philipp, 2016. "Does retirement (really) lead to worse health among European men and women across all educational levels?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 19-26.
    19. 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.
    20. Wang, Tianyu & Sun, Ruochen & Sindelar, Jody L. & Chen, Xi, 2024. "Occupational differences in the effects of retirement on hospitalizations for mental illness among female workers: Evidence from administrative data in China," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).

    More about this item

    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:mrr:papers:wp301. 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: MRRC Administrator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/isumius.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.