IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ehbiol/v40y2021ics1570677x20302197.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of retirement on health biomarkers

Author

Listed:
  • Gorry, Devon
  • Slavov, Sita Nataraj

Abstract

We utilize panel data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing to investigate the impact of retirement on objective health measures. In contrast to many previous studies, which focus on subjective self-reported health and life satisfaction measures, we focus on objective health biomarkers, such as diabetes indicators and cholesterol. Because poor health can induce retirement, we instrument for retirement using eligibility for state and employer sponsored pensions. Overall, there are few significant impacts of retirement on health biomarkers. The direction of effects is also mixed. Some biomarkers improve upon retirement, while others deteriorate. This contrasts with the consistently positive and significant improvements that are found in self-reported measures from the same dataset.

Suggested Citation

  • Gorry, Devon & Slavov, Sita Nataraj, 2021. "The effect of retirement on health biomarkers," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:40:y:2021:i:c:s1570677x20302197
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100949
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X20302197
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100949?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kolodziej, Ingo W.K. & García-Gómez, Pilar, 2019. "Saved by retirement: Beyond the mean effect on mental health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 85-97.
    2. Tumino, Alberto, 2016. "Retirement and cognitive abilities," ISER Working Paper Series 2016-06, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    3. Fitzpatrick, Maria D. & Moore, Timothy J., 2018. "The mortality effects of retirement: Evidence from Social Security eligibility at age 62," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 121-137.
    4. 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.
    5. Nicole Maestas, 2010. "Expectations and Realizations of Work after Retirement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(3).
    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. Susann Rohwedder & Robert J. Willis, 2010. "Mental Retirement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 119-138, Winter.
    8. 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.
    9. Hernaes, Erik & Markussen, Simen & Piggott, John & Vestad, Ola L., 2013. "Does retirement age impact mortality?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 586-598.
    10. Coe, Norma B. & Zamarro, Gema, 2011. "Retirement effects on health in Europe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 77-86, January.
    11. Kevin S. Milligan & David A. Wise, 2012. "Health and Work at Older Ages: Using Mortality to Assess the Capacity to Work across Countries," NBER Working Papers 18229, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Benjamins, Maureen Reindl & Hummer, Robert A. & Eberstein, Isaac W. & Nam, Charles B., 2004. "Self-reported health and adult mortality risk: An analysis of cause-specific mortality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(6), pages 1297-1306, September.
    15. Kathleen McGarry, 2004. "Health and Retirement: Do Changes in Health Affect Retirement Expectations?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(3).
    16. Kanabar, Ricky, 2015. "Post-retirement labour supply in England," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 123-132.
    17. Elizabeth Horner, 2014. "Subjective Well-Being and Retirement: Analysis and Policy Recommendations," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 125-144, February.
    18. Andrews,Donald W. K. & Stock,James H. (ed.), 2005. "Identification and Inference for Econometric Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844413.
    19. Leonardo Becchetti & Elena Giachin Ricca & Alessandra Pelloni, 2012. "The Relationship Between Social Leisure and Life Satisfaction: Causality and Policy Implications," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 108(3), pages 453-490, September.
    20. 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.
    21. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    22. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    23. Kerkhofs, Marcel & Lindeboom, Maarten & Theeuwes, Jules, 1999. "Retirement, financial incentives and health," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 203-227, June.
    24. Fabrizio Mazzonna & Franco Peracchi, 2017. "Unhealthy Retirement?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(1), pages 128-151.
    25. 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.
    26. 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.
    27. John Bound & Timothy Waidmann, 2007. "Estimating the Health Effects of Retirements," Working Papers wp168, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    28. 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. Jan C. van Ours, 2022. "How Retirement Affects Mental Health, Cognitive Skills and Mortality; An Overview of Recent Empirical Evidence," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 375-400, August.
    2. 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.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Leimer, Birgit & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2022. "No “honeymoon phase”: whose health benefits from retirement and when," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    4. Antoine Bozio & Clémentine Garrouste & Elsa Perdrix, 2021. "Impact of later retirement on mortality: Evidence from France," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1178-1199, May.
    5. Kuusi, T. & Martikainen, P. & Valkonen, T., 2020. "The influence of old-age retirement on health: Causal evidence from the Finnish register data," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    6. Antoine Bozio & Clémentine Garrouste & Elsa Perdrix, 2021. "Impact of later retirement on mortality: Evidence from France," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1178-1199, May.
    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. 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. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Maja Weemes Grøtting & Otto Sevaldson Lillebø, 2020. "Health effects of retirement: evidence from survey and register data," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(2), pages 671-704, April.
    16. 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.
    17. Rose, Liam, 2020. "Retirement and health: Evidence from England," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    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:eee:ehbiol:v:40:y:2021:i:c:s1570677x20302197. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622964 .

    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.