IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nzt/nztwps/12-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Health and Retirement of Older New Zealanders

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Increasing life expectancies and uncertainty about future retirement incomes are likely to lead to various changes in behaviour. As expectations are revised, one potentially important adjustment mechanism is in labour force participation rates. There is already evidence these are rising for those beyond the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation. This paper uses a new source of longitudinal data on the health, labour force participation and retirement decisions of older New Zealanders. The central question addressed is the extent to which labour force participation of older New Zealanders is influenced by their health status (both mental and physical), in addition to a wide range of economic, social and demographic variables. Discrete choice models are employed, and particular attention is given to the potential effects of unobserved heterogeneity. We find a range of factors to be associated with the decision to retire, notably health status, marital status and financial incentives. After accounting for the confounding influence of unobservables, we find that physical health remains a determinant of labour force exit for older males. Further, we estimate both the marginal and aggregate effects of specific chronic conditions on labour force participation.

Suggested Citation

  • Emma Gorman & Grant M Scobie & Andy Towers, 2012. "Health and Retirement of Older New Zealanders," Treasury Working Paper Series 12/02, New Zealand Treasury.
    • Handle: RePEc:nzt:nztwps:12/02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2012-06/twp12-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scott, Kate M. & Sarfati, Diana & Tobias, Martin I. & Haslett, Stephen J., 2000. "A challenge to the cross-cultural validity of the SF-36 health survey: factor structure in Maori, Pacific and New Zealand European ethnic groups," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(11), pages 1655-1664, December.
    2. Bruce Hollingsworth & Anthony Scott & Sandy Tubeuf & Florence Jusot & Damien Bricard, 2012. "Mediating Role Of Education And Lifestyles In The Relationship Between Early‐Life Conditions And Health: Evidence From The 1958 British Cohort," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21, pages 129-150, June.
    3. Nicole Maestas & Julie Zissimopoulos, 2010. "How Longer Work Lives Ease the Crunch of Population Aging," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, pages 139-160.
    4. Lixin Cai & Guyonne Kalb, 2007. "Health status and labour force status of older working-age Australian men," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 10(4), pages 227-252.
    5. repec:dau:papers:123456789/9292 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    7. 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.
    8. Brandt, Martina & Deindl, Christian & Hank, Karsten, 2012. "Tracing the origins of successful aging: The role of childhood conditions and social inequality in explaining later life health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(9), pages 1418-1425.
    9. Milan Vodopivec & Primoz Dolenc:, 2008. "Live Longer, Work Longer: Making It Happen in the Labor Market," Financial Theory and Practice, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 32(1), pages 65-81.
    10. John Bryant & Audrey Teasdale & Martin Tobias & Jit Cheung & Mhairi McHugh, 2004. "Population Ageing and Government Health Expenditures in New Zealand, 1951-2051," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/14, New Zealand Treasury.
    11. Jürgen Maurer & Roger Klein & Francis Vella, 2011. "Subjective Health Assessments and Active Labor Market Participation of Older Men: Evidence from a Semiparametric Binary Choice Model with Nonadditive Correlated Individual-specific Effects," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 764-774, August.
    12. Agar Brugiavini & Tullio Jappelli & Guglielmo Weber, 2002. "The Survey on Health, Aging and Wealth," CSEF Working Papers 86, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    13. Richard Disney, 1996. "Can We Afford to Grow Older?," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026204157x, December.
    14. Lixin Cai & Guyonne Kalb, 2006. "Health status and labour force participation: evidence from Australia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(3), pages 241-261, March.
    15. 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.
    16. Bound, John & Schoenbaum, Michael & Stinebrickner, Todd R. & Waidmann, Timothy, 1999. "The dynamic effects of health on the labor force transitions of older workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 179-202, June.
    17. John Bound, 1991. "Self-Reported Versus Objective Measures of Health in Retirement Models," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(1), pages 106-138.
    18. Disney, Richard & Emmerson, Carl & Wakefield, Matthew, 2006. "Ill health and retirement in Britain: A panel data-based analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 621-649, July.
    19. Sandy Tubeuf & Florence Jusot & Damien Bricard, 2012. "Mediating Role Of Education And Lifestyles In The Relationship Between Early‐Life Conditions And Health: Evidence From The 1958 British Cohort," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(S1), pages 129-150, June.
    20. Gary Chamberlain, 1980. "Analysis of Covariance with Qualitative Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(1), pages 225-238.
    21. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    22. Sophia Rabe-Hesketh & Anders Skrondal, 2012. "Multilevel and Longitudinal Modeling Using Stata, 3rd Edition," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, edition 3, number mimus2, March.
    23. James Enright & Grant M Scobie, 2010. "Healthy, Wealthy and Working: Retirement Decisions of Older New Zealanders," Treasury Working Paper Series 10/02, New Zealand Treasury.
    24. Roger Hurnard, 2005. "The effect of New Zealand Superannuation eligibility age on the labour force participation of older people," Treasury Working Paper Series 05/09, New Zealand Treasury.
    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. Lees, Kirdan, 2013. "Golden years? The impacts of New Zealand’s ageing on wages, interest rates, wealth and macroeconomy," NZIER Working Paper 2013/1, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.
    2. Omar Aziz & Norman Gemmell & Athene Laws, 2016. "Income and Fiscal Incidence by Age and Gender: Some Evidence from New Zealand," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(3), pages 534-558, September.
    3. Aziz, Omar & Gemmell, Norman & Laws, Athene, 2013. "The Distribution of Income and Fiscal Incidence by Age and Gender: Some Evidence from New Zealand," Working Paper Series 18785, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.

    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. Zhang, Xiaohui & Zhao, Xueyan & Harris, Anthony, 2009. "Chronic diseases and labour force participation in Australia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 91-108, January.
    2. Cai, Lixin, 2010. "The relationship between health and labour force participation: Evidence from a panel data simultaneous equation model," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 77-90, January.
    3. Kostas Mavromaras & Joanne Flavel, 2017. "An Analysis of the Impact of Health on Occupation," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93, pages 86-104, June.
    4. Maite Blázquez & Elena Cottini & Ainhoa Herrarte, 2014. "The socioeconomic gradient in health: how important is material deprivation?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(2), pages 239-264, June.
    5. Hernández-Quevedo, Cristina & Jones, Andrew M. & Rice, Nigel, 2008. "Persistence in health limitations: A European comparative analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1472-1488, December.
    6. Sarah Brown & Jennifer Roberts & Karl Taylor, 2010. "Reservation wages, labour market participation and health," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(3), pages 501-529, July.
    7. Lixin Cai & Kostas Mavromaras & Umut Oguzoglu, 2014. "The Effects Of Health Status And Health Shocks On Hours Worked," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 516-528, May.
    8. James Enright & Grant M Scobie, 2010. "Healthy, Wealthy and Working: Retirement Decisions of Older New Zealanders," Treasury Working Paper Series 10/02, New Zealand Treasury.
    9. Lixin Cai, 2009. "Effects of Health on Wages of Australian Men," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 85(270), pages 290-306, September.
    10. Anthony Harris, 2009. "Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease and Labour Force Participation in Australia: An Endogenous Multivariate Probit Analysis of Clinical Prevalence Data," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 85(271), pages 472-484, December.
    11. Harris, M.N. & Zhao, X. & Zucchelli, E., 2016. "The dynamics of health and labour market transitions at older ages: evidence from a multi-state model," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 16/30, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    12. Eric Delattre & Richard K. Moussa & Mareva Sabatier, 2019. "Health condition and job status interactions: econometric evidence of causality from a French longitudinal survey," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, December.
    13. Lixin Cai & Changxin Cong, 2009. "Effects Of Health And Chronic Diseases On Labour Force Participation Of Older Working‐Age Australians," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(2), pages 166-182, June.
    14. Zucchelli, E. & Harris, M. & Zhao, X., 2012. "Ill-health and transitions to part-time work and self-employment among older workers," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 12/04, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    15. Stefanie Schurer, 2008. "Discrete Heterogeneity in the Impact of Health Shocks on Labour Market Outcomes," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2008n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    16. Richard Blundell & Jack Britton & Monica Costa Dias & Eric French, 2023. "The Impact of Health on Labor Supply near Retirement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 282-334.
    17. Bakhtin, Maxim & Aleksandrova, Ekaterina, 2018. "Health and labor force participation of elderly Russians," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 49, pages 5-29.
    18. Maarten Lindeboom, 2012. "Health and Work of Older Workers," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Emmanuel Duguet & Christine Le Clainche, 2020. "The Socioeconomic and Gender Impacts of Health Events on Employment Transitions in France: A Panel Data Study," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 449-483.
    20. Umut Oguzoglu, 2010. "Dynamics of work limitation and work in Australia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(6), pages 656-669, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labour force participation; Health; Retirement; New Zealand; Longitudinal survey;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    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:nzt:nztwps:12/02. 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: CSS Web and Publishing, The Treasury (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tregvnz.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.