IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/119344.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mean survival times and retirement ages

Author

Listed:
  • Linden, Mikael
  • Väänänen, Niko

Abstract

We propose an elementary economic model which assumes that the integral of life survival function can be interpreted as a utility function. The model helps us to understand connections between individual’s survival estimate to some specific age and the timing of retirement. The difference between survival and related longevity costs is maximized with an estimate of survival time. The results are derived with the concept of restricted mean survival times (RMST). This is also applied to the observed retirement and death ages for the Finnish year 1947 birth cohort. We show that actual survival times, i.e., mean lifetimes to the age of 73 years, which is the highest age in our follow-up sample, differ among retired and not yet retired persons between the ages from 60 to 68 years. The main result is that persons who retire in ages from 62 to 66 years have shorter mean lifetimes to the age of 73 years compared to individuals who do not retire in these ages. This is interpreted as evidence of too optimistic survival estimates among the persons retiring at the most popular retirement ages.

Suggested Citation

  • Linden, Mikael & Väänänen, Niko, 2023. "Mean survival times and retirement ages," MPRA Paper 119344, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:119344
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/119344/1/MPRA_paper_119344.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hans Bloemen & Stefan Hochguertel & Jochem Zweerink, 2017. "The causal effect of retirement on mortality: Evidence from targeted incentives to retire early," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 204-218, December.
    2. Wolfe, John R, 1983. "Perceived Longevity and Early Retirement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(4), pages 544-551, November.
    3. Brockmann, Hilke & Müller, Rolf & Helmert, Uwe, 2009. "Time to retire - Time to die? A prospective cohort study of the effects of early retirement on long-term survival," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 160-164, July.
    4. Chen, An & Hieber, Peter & Rach, Manuel, 2021. "Optimal retirement products under subjective mortality beliefs," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(PA), pages 55-69.
    5. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1985. "Expectations, Life Expectancy, and Economic Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(2), pages 389-408.
    6. Michael D. Hurd & Kathleen McGarry, 1995. "Evaluation of the Subjective Probabilities of Survival in the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30, pages 268-292.
    7. Michael D. Hurd & James P. Smith & Julie M. Zissimopoulos, 2004. "The effects of subjective survival on retirement and Social Security claiming," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(6), pages 761-775.
    8. Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan & David Weil, 2010. "Mortality change, the uncertainty effect, and retirement," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 65-91, March.
    9. Linden, Mikael, 2022. "Retirement duration maximization with survival time expectations," MPRA Paper 115903, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Hernaes, Erik & Markussen, Simen & Piggott, John & Vestad, Ola L., 2013. "Does retirement age impact mortality?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 586-598.
    11. Péter Hudomiet & Robert J. Willis, 2013. "Estimating Second Order Probability Beliefs from Subjective Survival Data," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 152-170, June.
    12. Owen O'Donnell & Federica Teppa & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2008. "Can subjective survival expectations explain retirement behaviour?," DNB Working Papers 188, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    13. Moshe Hazan, 2009. "Longevity and Lifetime Labor Supply: Evidence and Implications," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(6), pages 1829-1863, November.
    14. Cormac O'Dea & David Sturrock, 2019. "Survival pessimism and the demand for annuities," IFS Working Papers W19/02, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    15. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Michael Moore, 2004. "The Effect of Improvements in Health and Longevity on Optimal Retirement and Saving," NBER Working Papers 10919, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Federica Teppa, 2011. "Can the Longevity Risk Alleviate the Annuitization Puzzle? Empirical Evidence from Dutch Data," DNB Working Papers 302, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    17. Maria Perozek, 2008. "Using subjective expectations to forecast longevity: do survey respondents know something we don’t know?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(1), pages 95-113, February.
    18. Todd Elder, 2013. "The Predictive Validity of Subjective Mortality Expectations: Evidence From the Health and Retirement Study," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(2), pages 569-589, April.
    19. Alberto Palloni & Beatriz Novak, 2016. "Subjective survival expectations and observed survival: How consistent are they?," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 14(1), pages 187-228.
    20. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Michael Moore, 2014. "Optimal Retirement with Increasing Longevity," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 116(3), pages 838-858, July.
    21. Federica Teppa, 2011. "Can the longevity risk alleviate The annuitization puzzle? Empirical evidence from Dutch data," Working Papers 223, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    22. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2011. "Differential Survival in Europe and the United States: Estimates Based on Subjective Probabilities of Survival," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(4), pages 1377-1400, November.
    23. Mao, Hong & Ostaszewski, Krzysztof M. & Wang, Yuling, 2014. "Optimal retirement age, leisure and consumption," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 458-464.
    24. Hallberg, Daniel & Johansson, Per & Josephson, Malin, 2015. "Is an early retirement offer good for your health? Quasi-experimental evidence from the army," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 274-285.
    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. Vesile Kutlu-Koc & Adriaan Kalwij, 2017. "Individual Survival Expectations and Actual Mortality: Evidence from Dutch Survey and Administrative Data," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 33(4), pages 509-532, October.
    2. Joan Costa-Font & Cristina Vilaplana-Prieto, 2022. "Biased survival expectations and behaviours: Does domain specific information matter?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 285-317, December.
    3. Wu, Shang & Stevens, Ralph & Thorp, Susan, 2015. "Cohort and target age effects on subjective survival probabilities: Implications for models of the retirement phase," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 39-56.
    4. Teresa Bago d'Uva & Esen Erdogan Ciftci & Owen O'Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2015. "Who can predict their Own Demise? Accuracy of Longevity Expectations by Education and Cognition," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 15-052/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Nils Grevenbrock & Max Groneck & Alexander Ludwig & Alexander Zimper, 2021. "Cognition, Optimism, And The Formation Of Age‐Dependent Survival Beliefs," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(2), pages 887-918, May.
    6. Alberto Palloni & Beatriz Novak, 2016. "Subjective survival expectations and observed survival: How consistent are they?," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 14(1), pages 187-228.
    7. Post, Thomas & Hanewald, Katja, 2013. "Longevity risk, subjective survival expectations, and individual saving behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 200-220.
    8. Adeline Delavande & Jinkook Lee & Seetha Menon, 2017. "Eliciting Survival Expectations of the Elderly in Low-Income Countries: Evidence From India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 673-699, April.
    9. Linden, Mikael, 2023. "Retirement Age Trap: RDD Approach to Terminated Retirement Spells," MPRA Paper 119168, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Brigitte Dormont & Anne-Laure Samson & Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Luchini & Erik Schokkaert, 2018. "Individual Uncertainty About Longevity," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(5), pages 1829-1854, October.
    11. Bucher-Koenen, Tabea & Kluth, Sebastian, 2013. "Subjective Life Expectancy and Private Pensions," MEA discussion paper series 201214, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    12. Adriaan Kalwij & Vesile Kutlu Koc, 2021. "Is the accuracy of individuals' survival beliefs associated with their knowledge of population life expectancy?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(14), pages 453-468.
    13. Bago d'Uva, Teresa & O'Donnell, Owen & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2020. "Who can predict their own demise? Heterogeneity in the accuracy and value of longevity expectations☆," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    14. 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).
    15. Bruno Arpino & Pierluigi Conzo & Francesco Salustri, 2022. "I am a survivor, keep on surviving: early-life exposure to conflict and subjective survival probabilities in adult life," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 471-517, April.
    16. 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.
    17. Barschkett, Mara & Geyer, Johannes & Haan, Peter & Hammerschmid, Anna, 2022. "The effects of an increase in the retirement age on health — Evidence from administrative data," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    18. Tim Riffe & Pil H. Chung & Jeroen Spijker & John MacInnes, 2016. "Time-to-death patterns in markers of age and dependency," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 14(1), pages 229-254.
    19. Grevenbrock, Nils & Groneck, Max & Ludwig, Alexander & Zimper, Alexander, 2015. "Biased Survival Beliefs, Psychological and Cognitive Explanations, and the Demand for Life Insurances," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113203, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Michael Moore & Younghwan Song, 2007. "The Effect of Subjective Survival Probabilities on Retirement and Wealth in the United States," Chapters, in: Robert L. Clark & Naohiro Ogawa & Andrew Mason (ed.), Population Aging, Intergenerational Transfers and the Macroeconomy, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Retirement ages; subjective survival times; age of death; survival analysis; restricted mean survival times (RMST;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C41 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Duration Analysis; Optimal Timing Strategies
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:119344. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.