The Causal Effect of Retirement on Health Services Utilization: Evidence from Urban Vietnam

Access to medical services is significantly essential for retaining and improving health status for aging population. Whilst retired individuals tend to have more time for the use of health services, there is only inadequate evidence evaluating the causal effect of retirement on health services utilization. To fulfill this gap in the literature especially from developing countries, this paper estimates the causal effect of retirement on the probability and the frequency of doctor visits at public health facilities in urban Vietnam. Employing authorized retirement ages for both men and women in Vietnam as instruments for the probability to be retired, the paper shows that retirement significantly increases some outcomes of outpatient health services for both male and female. In particular, the baseline 2SLS estimates indicate that men who are retired are more likely to have any outpatient medical visit than those who are not retired by about 36.1%. Meanwhile, retirement rises both the likelihood and the frequency of outpatient visits for female by roughly 31% and 1.75 times respectively. However, this paper finds statistically insignificant impacts of retirement on utilization outcomes for inpatient services.