Does Retirement Improve Health and Life Satisfaction?

Aspen Gorry, Devon Gorry and Sita Slavov

No 21326, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We utilize panel data from the Health and Retirement Study to investigate the impact of retirement on physical and mental health, life satisfaction, and health care utilization. Because poor health can induce retirement, we instrument for retirement using eligibility for Social Security and employer sponsored pensions and coverage by the Social Security earnings test. We find strong evidence that retirement improves both health and life satisfaction. While the impact on life satisfaction occurs within the first 4 years of retirement, many of the improvements in health show up 4 or more years later, consistent with the view that health is a stock that evolves slowly. We find little evidence that retirement influences health care utilization.

JEL-codes: I10 I31 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-hap and nep-hea
Note: AG EH
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Published as 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.

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Journal Article: Does retirement improve health and life satisfaction? (2018)
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