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Gaining Weight through Retirement ? Results from the SHARE Survey

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  • Mathilde Godard

    (CREST and University Paris-Dauphine)

Abstract

This paper estimates the causal impact of retirement among the 50-69 year-old on Body Mass Index (BMI), the probability of being either overweight or obese and the probability of being obese. Based on the 2004, 2006 and 2010-11 waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), our identification strategy exploits the European variation in Early Retirement Ages (ERAs) and the stepwise increase in ERAs in Austria and Italy between 2004 and 2011 to produce an exogeneous shock in retirement behaviour. Our results show that retirement induced by discontinuous incentives in early retirement schemes causes a 13 percentage point increase in the probability of being obese among men within a two to four-year period. Additional results show that this effect is driven by men having retired from strenuous jobs and who were already at risk of obesity. No effects are found among women.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathilde Godard, 2014. "Gaining Weight through Retirement ? Results from the SHARE Survey," Working Papers 2014-19, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    • Handle: RePEc:crs:wpaper:2014-19
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Body Mass Index; Obesity; Retirement; Instrumental Variables;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

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