IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/vid/yearbk/v12y2014i1p53-82.html

The effect of retirement on self-reported health: a gender comparison in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Lucia Coppola
  • Daniele Spizzichino

Abstract

The effect of retirement on health has been widely investigated in the literature, but the evidence on this issue is conflicting, and the debate surrounding it still open. This topic is of particular interest when expenditures for pensions and health care systems, and their potential interrelationship, are primary concerns for policy makers. This is the case in ageing countries like Italy, where the recent pension reform, which included an increase in the minimum pension age, makes gaining an understanding of the potential consequences of retirement postponement for health even more relevant. Using EU-SILC longitudinal data, we investigate the effect of retirement on self-reported health in Italy from a gender perspective. We apply logistic regressions and propensity score matching to estimate the net effect of retirement on health after potential endogeneity is controlled for. The main results show that the self-reported health of men worsens shortly after retirement, while the self-reported health of women does not change.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucia Coppola & Daniele Spizzichino, 2014. "The effect of retirement on self-reported health: a gender comparison in Italy," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 12(1), pages 53-82.
    • Handle: RePEc:vid:yearbk:v:12:y:2014:i:1:p:53-82
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://austriaca.at/0xc1aa5576_0x00329fcb.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dwyer, Debra Sabatini & Mitchell, Olivia S., 1999. "Health problems as determinants of retirement: Are self-rated measures endogenous?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 173-193, April.
    2. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    3. Coe, N.B. & Lindeboom, M., 2008. "Does Retirement Kill You? Evidence from Early Retirement Windows," Other publications TiSEM 749af81e-10f6-4c32-b9ae-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. Kremer, Yael, 1985. "The association between health and retirement: Self-health assessment of Israeli retirees," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 61-66, January.
    5. Sascha O. Becker & Marco Caliendo, 2007. "Sensitivity analysis for average treatment effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 7(1), pages 71-83, February.
    6. Marco Caliendo & Sabine Kopeinig, 2008. "Some Practical Guidance For The Implementation Of Propensity Score Matching," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 31-72, February.
    7. Stefanie Behncke, 2012. "Does retirement trigger ill health?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 282-300, March.
    8. Kathleen McGarry, 2004. "Health and Retirement: Do Changes in Health Affect Retirement Expectations?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(3).
    9. Sickles, Robin C & Taubman, Paul, 1986. "An Analysis of the Health and Retirement Status of the Elderly," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(6), pages 1339-1356, November.
    10. Kathryn H. Anderson & Richard V. Burkhauser, 1985. "The Retirement-Health Nexus: A New Measure of an Old Puzzle," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 20(3), pages 315-330.
    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. 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.
    2. Nikolov Plamen & Adelman Alan, 2018. "Short-Run Health Consequences of Retirement and Pension Benefits: Evidence from China," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 1-27, December.
    3. Antoine Bozio & Clémentine Garrouste & Elsa Perdrix, 2021. "Impact of later retirement on mortality: Evidence from France," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1178-1199, May.
    4. Birgit Leimer, 2017. "No “Honeymoon Phase” Whose health benefits from retirement and when," Working Papers 1718, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    5. Aspen Gorry & Devon Gorry & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2018. "Does retirement improve health and life satisfaction?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(12), pages 2067-2086, December.
    6. Kuhn, Michael & Wrzaczek, Stefan & Prskawetz, Alexia & Feichtinger, Gustav, 2015. "Optimal choice of health and retirement in a life-cycle model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PA), pages 186-212.
    7. Deschryvere, Matthias, 2004. "Health and Retirement. An Update of the Literature," Discussion Papers 932, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    8. Yuanrong Xu, 2023. "The effect of retirement on health and mortality in the United States," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 1-22, June.
    9. Heidler, Matthias & Raffelhüschen, Bernd & Leifels, Arne, 2006. "Heterogenous life expectancy, adverse selection, and retirement behaviour," FZG Discussion Papers 13, University of Freiburg, Research Center for Generational Contracts (FZG).
    10. Apouey, Bénédicte H. & Guven, Cahit & Senik, Claudia, 2019. "Retirement and Unexpected Health Shocks," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 116-123.
    11. Marco Caliendo & Stefan Tübbicke, 2020. "New evidence on long-term effects of start-up subsidies: matching estimates and their robustness," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1605-1631, October.
    12. Michael Insler, 2014. "The Health Consequences of Retirement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 195-233.
    13. Nabanita Datta Gupta & Mona Larsen, 2010. "The impact of health on individual retirement plans: self‐reported versus diagnostic measures," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(7), pages 792-813, July.
    14. Leimer, Birgit & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2022. "No “honeymoon phase”: whose health benefits from retirement and when," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    15. Devon Gorry & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2023. "The effect of retirement on health behaviors," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(10), pages 2234-2259, October.
    16. Timo Mitze & Alfredo R. Paloyo & Björn Alecke, 2015. "Is There a Purchase Limit on Regional Growth? A Quasi-experimental Evaluation of Investment Grants Using Matching Techniques," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 38(4), pages 388-412, October.
    17. Paul Attewell & David Monaghan, 2016. "How Many Credits Should an Undergraduate Take?," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 57(6), pages 682-713, September.
    18. Candon, David, 2018. "The effect of cancer on the labor supply of employed men over the age of 65," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 184-199.
    19. 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.
    20. Riccardo Turati, 2025. "Networks abroad and culture: global individual-level evidence," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-42, March.

    More about this item

    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:vid:yearbk:v:12:y:2014:i:1:p:53-82. 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: Bernhard Rengs (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/ .

    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.