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Retirement patterns of couples in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Laura Hospido

    (Banco de España and IZA)

  • Gema Zamarro

    (Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research. University of Southern California)

Abstract

In this paper we study the retirement patterns of couples in a multi-country setting using data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe. In particular, we test whether women’s (men’s) transitions out of the labor force are causally related to the actual realization of their husbands’ (wives’) transition, using the institutional variation in country-specific early and full statutory retirement ages to instrument the latter. Exploiting the discontinuities in retirement behavior across countries, we find a significant joint retirement effect, especially for women, of around 16 to 18 percentage points. For men, we find a similar but less precise effect. Our empirical strategy allows us to give a causal interpretation to the effect we estimate. In addition, this effect has important implications for policy analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Laura Hospido & Gema Zamarro, 2013. "Retirement patterns of couples in Europe," Working Papers 1317, Banco de España;Working Papers Homepage.
    • Handle: RePEc:bde:wpaper:1317
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Godard, Mathilde, 2016. "Gaining weight through retirement? Results from the SHARE survey," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 27-46.
    2. Queiroz, Bernardo L. & Souza, Laeticia R., 2017. "Retirement incentives and couple’s retirement decisions in Brazil," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 1-13.
    3. Marco Bertoni & Giorgio Brunello, 2014. "Pappa Ante Portas: The Retired Husband Syndrome in Japan," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0182, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    4. 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).
    5. Michaud, Pierre-Carl & Van Soest, Arthur & Bissonnette, Luc, 2020. "Understanding joint retirement," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 386-401.
    6. Sílvia Garcia-Mandicó & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2020. "Spillovers in pension incentives and the joint retirement behavior of Spanish couples," Working Papers 2020-13, FEDEA.
    7. 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.
    8. Michael Christl & Dénes Kucsera, 2019. "Actuarial Neutrality and Financial Incentives for Early Retirement in the Austrian Pension System," DANUBE: Law and Economics Review, European Association Comenius - EACO, issue 1, pages 1-22, March.
    9. Johnsen, Julian Vedeler & Willén, Alexander & Vaage, Kjell, 2020. "Interactions in Public Policies: Spousal Responses and Program Spillovers of Welfare Reforms," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 20/2020, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    10. Ciani, Emanuele, 2016. "Retirement, pension eligibility and home production," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 106-120.
    11. Vipul Bhatt, 2017. "Cohort Differences in Joint Retirement: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 475-495, December.
    12. Amuedo-Dorantes Catalina & Borra Cristina, 2017. "Retirement Decisions in Recessionary Times: Evidence from Spain," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(2), pages 1-21, April.
    13. Mathilde Godard, 2015. "Gaining weight through retirement? Results from the SHARE survey," Post-Print halshs-01521884, HAL.
    14. Blundell, R. & French, E. & Tetlow, G., 2016. "Retirement Incentives and Labor Supply," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.),Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 457-566, Elsevier.
    15. Boman, Anders, 2015. "Spending time together? Effects on the retirement decision from partner’s labour market status," Working Papers in Economics 618, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    16. 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.
    17. Pérez, Carlos & Martín-Román, Ángel & Moral, Alfonso, 2020. "Two decades of the complementary leisure effect in Spain," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 15(C).
    18. Laura Hospido, 2015. "Pension reform and couples' joint retirement decisions," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 142-142, April.
    19. Monika Riedel & Helmut Hofer & Birgit Wögerbauer, 2015. "Determinants for the transition from work into retirement in Europe," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Joint retirement; Social security incentives;

    JEL classification:

    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models

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