The effect of retirement on economic welfare, indirectly measured by income, has not been studied widely, namely due to the lack of longitudinal data. A large literature exists about poverty in old age, mainly based on cross sectional survey data, but usually those studies are not able to study the transitional effect of retirement on income as they do not observe the workers who do retire before and after their retirement. The knowledge of this phenomenon is, however, of crucial relevance given the growing number of elderly people, the trend towards earlier retirement, and continuing relatively high poverty rates among the elderly. This paper analyses the association between transitions into retirement and the probability of becoming poor, considering different definitions of low income and of retirement, following what has been proposed in the literature. It is based on longitudinal data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) for Portugal survey waves 1-8 covering 1994-2001. Taking advantage of the longitudinal nature of the data used, we consider how the process of becoming retired is associated with an increased risk of having a low income, focusing on changes in the years immediately before and immediately after retirement for people who retire. The analysis is then focused on a sample of people who do retire during the analysed period. The paper starts by presenting evidence comparing low income incidence among retired people and the rest of the population on each of the waves of ECHP. Afterwards it analyses some factors associated with the changes in individuals’ income over a number of years around retirement. The dynamics of household income changes for people who retire are studied and which personal and household characteristics are associated with a higher risk of having low income in the years around retirement are explored. Finally, a multivariate probit model of the probability of entering low income at the time of retirement conditional on not having a low income before retirement is estimated.
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Paper provided by Department of Economics at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon. in its series Working Papers with number
2006/15.
Length: Date of creation: 2006 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp152006
Contact details of provider: Postal: Department of Economics, School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon, Rua do Quelhas 6, 1200-781 LISBON, PORTUGAL Web page: http://www.iseg.utl.pt/departamentos/economia/
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Find related papers by JEL classification: H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
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