IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/adr/anecst/y2021i144p39-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retired at Last? Past Working Conditions and the Role of Retirement in Health Status

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Barnay
  • Éric Defebvre

Abstract

This paper assesses the role played by retirement in health status by considering past working conditions. Using data from the French Health and Professional Path survey, we address the endogeneity biases by setting up a mixed econometric strategy relying on an instrumental variable method using retirement age thresholds and a matching method. Retirement has positive effects on the health of less exposed individuals while yielding considerably greater improvements for workers retiring from highly demanding careers. The highest protective influence appears in the low-skilled male population and exposed to physical constraints, with a decline of 21.2 pp in the probability of declaring poor health and of 13.7 pp in chronic diseases, 16 pp in activity limitations and 8 pp in anxiety or depression. These results advocate the need for preventive measures aimed towards exposures to work strains and/or differentiated retirement schemes according to the nature and intensity of a pensioner's entire work life.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Barnay & Éric Defebvre, 2021. "Retired at Last? Past Working Conditions and the Role of Retirement in Health Status," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 144, pages 39-74.
    • Handle: RePEc:adr:anecst:y:2021:i:144:p:39-74
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.15609/annaeconstat2009.144.0039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15609/annaeconstat2009.144.0039
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/https://doi.org/10.15609/annaeconstat2009.144.0039?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Barnay, 2016. "Health, work and working conditions: a review of the European economic literature," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(6), pages 693-709, July.
    2. Shmueli, Amir, 2003. "Socio-economic and demographic variation in health and in its measures: the issue of reporting heterogeneity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 125-134, July.
    3. Susann Rohwedder & Robert J. Willis, 2010. "Mental Retirement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 119-138, Winter.
    4. Shai, Ori, 2018. "Is retirement good for men’s health? Evidence using a change in the retirement age in Israel," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 15-30.
    5. Berney, L. R. & Blane, D. B., 1997. "Collecting retrospective data: Accuracy of recall after 50 years judged against historical records," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1519-1525, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Thomas Barnay & Eric Defebvre, 2018. "Retired, at last? The short-term impact of retirement on health status in France," TEPP Working Paper 2018-01, TEPP.
    2. Pedron, Sara & Maier, Werner & Peters, Annette & Linkohr, Birgit & Meisinger, Christine & Rathmann, Wolfgang & Eibich, Peter & Schwettmann, Lars, 2020. "The effect of retirement on biomedical and behavioral risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic disease," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    3. Eric Defebvre, 2016. "Harder, better, faster... yet stronger? Working conditions and self-declaration of chronic diseases," TEPP Working Paper 2016-07, TEPP.
    4. Thomas Barnay & Éric Defebvre, 2021. "Working conditions and disabilities in French workers: a career-long retrospective study," Erudite Working Paper 2021-14, Erudite.
    5. Thomas Barnay & Éric Defebvre, 2019. "Gender Differences in the Influence of Mental Health on Job Retention," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 33(4), pages 507-532, December.
    6. Thomas Barnay, 2016. "Health, work and working conditions: a review of the European economic literature," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(6), pages 693-709, July.
    7. Frimmel, Wolfgang & Pruckner, Gerald J., 2020. "Retirement and healthcare utilization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    8. 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.
    9. Leimer, Birgit & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2022. "No “honeymoon phase”: whose health benefits from retirement and when," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    10. Fougère, Denis & d'Albis, Hippolyte & Gouëdard, Pierre, 2020. "Slow Down Before You Stop: The Effect of the 2010 French Pension Reform on Older Teachers' Sick Leaves," CEPR Discussion Papers 15142, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Byrne, Dominic & Kwak, Do Won & Tang, Kam Ki & Yazbeck, Myra, 2023. "Spillover effects of retirement: Does health vulnerability matter?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    12. Thomas Barnay & Éric Defebvre, 2023. "Work strains and disabilities in French workers: A career‐long retrospective study," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 37(3), pages 385-408, September.
    13. Ludovico Carrino & Karen Glaser & Mauricio Avendano, 2020. "Later retirement, job strain, and health: Evidence from the new State Pension age in the United Kingdom," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(8), pages 891-912, August.
    14. Motegi, Hiroyuki & Nishimura, Yoshinori & Oikawa, Masato, 2020. "Retirement and health investment behaviors: An international comparison," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    15. Éric Defebvre, 2018. "Harder, better, faster … Yet stronger? Working conditions and self‐declaration of chronic diseases," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 59-76, March.
    16. Carrino, L.; & Nafilyan, V.; & Avendaño Pabon, M.;, 2019. "Should I Care or Should I Work? The Impact of Working in Older Age on Caregiving," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/23, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    17. Mohamed Ali Ben Halima & Camille Ciriez & Malik Koubi & Ali Skalli, 2021. "Retarder l’âge d’ouverture des droits à la retraite provoque-t-il un déversement de l’assurance-retraite vers l’assurance-maladie ? L’effet de la réforme des retraites de 2010 sur l’absence-maladie," Working Papers hal-03507914, HAL.
    18. Apouey, Bénédicte H. & Guven, Cahit & Senik, Claudia, 2019. "Retirement and Unexpected Health Shocks," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 116-123.
    19. Erhel, Christine & Guergoat-Larivière, Mathilde & Mofakhami, Malo, 2024. "Diversity of flexible working time arrangements and workers' health: An analysis of a workers’ panel and linked employer-employee data for France," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 356(C).
    20. Giesecke, Matthias & Okoampah, Sarah, 2014. "Inequality of Opportunity in Retirement Age – The Role of Physical Job Demands," Ruhr Economic Papers 492, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Retirement; Working Conditions; Physical Health; Mental Health; Instrumental Variables; Matching Method; France;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • J81 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Working Conditions
    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • C36 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

    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:adr:anecst:y:2021:i:144:p:39-74. 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: Secretariat General or Laurent Linnemer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ensaefr.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.