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Pappa Ante Portas: The effect of the husband's retirement on the wife's mental health in Japan

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  • Bertoni, Marco
  • Brunello, Giorgio

Abstract

The “Retired Husband Syndrome”, that affects the mental health of wives of retired men around the world, has been anecdotally documented but never formally investigated. Using Japanese micro-data and the exogenous variation across cohorts in the maximum age of guaranteed employment induced by a 2006 Japanese reform, we estimate that the husband's earlier retirement significantly increases the probability that the wife reports symptoms related to the syndrome. We also find that retirement has a negative effect both on the household's economic situation and on the husband's own mental health, and that the higher economic distress contributes to reducing the wife's mental health.

Suggested Citation

  • Bertoni, Marco & Brunello, Giorgio, 2017. "Pappa Ante Portas: The effect of the husband's retirement on the wife's mental health in Japan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 135-142.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:175:y:2017:i:c:p:135-142
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.01.012
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    Cited by:

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    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. Matteo Picchio & Jan C. van Ours, 2020. "Mental Health Effects of Retirement," De Economist, Springer, vol. 168(3), pages 419-452, September.
    4. Müller, Tobias & Shaikh, Mujaheed, 2018. "Your retirement and my health behavior: Evidence on retirement externalities from a fuzzy regression discontinuity design," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 45-59.
    5. Jakob Everding & Jan Marcus, 2020. "The effect of unemployment on the smoking behavior of couples," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 154-170, February.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Zang, Emma, 2020. "Spillover effects of a husband's retirement on a woman's health: Evidence from urban China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    9. Messe, Pierre-Jean & Wolff, François-Charles, 2019. "The short-term effects of retirement on health within couples: Evidence from France," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 27-39.
    10. Steve Briand, 2020. "Beyond the direct impact of retirement: coordination by couples in preventive and risky behaviors," Working Papers hal-02467440, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Japan; Mental health; Stress; Couples; Retirement; Pension reforms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

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