Delaying retirement, reshaping exits, and the gender mortality gap: Evidence from the 2011 Spanish Pension Reform

We estimate causal effects of the 2011 Spanish pension reform—which raised the normal retirement age (NRA) from 65 to 67, conditioning access on accumulated contribution years—on retirement timing, exit route, and premature mortality. Using data from the Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales we find that the reform delayed retirement by about eight months on average for fully treated individuals belonging to the 1948-1957 cohorts, the cohorts observable in our data. Because the reform phases in gradually until the 1962 cohort—the first to face the fully phased-in rules, which then apply unchanged to all later cohorts—the total effect will be larger as more intensely affected cohorts complete their working lives. The dominant response is a reallocation away from retirement at and before age 65 toward retirement after 65, and is markedly larger for women, who are less likely to meet the long-career exemption. The reform raises premature mortality, significantly so for men; the implied gender differential widens the male mortality excess and narrows the female survival advantage, though sample-weighted gaps are sensitive to the large share of male controls.