Why Life Gets Better After Age 50, for Some: Mental Well-Being and the Social Norm of Work

Coen van de Kraats (vandekraats@ese.eur.nl), Titus Galama (galama@usc.edu), Maarten Lindeboom (m.lindeboom@vu.nl) and Zichen Deng (z.deng@uva.nl)
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Coen van de Kraats: Erasmus University Rotterdam
Titus Galama: University of Southern California
Maarten Lindeboom: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Zichen Deng: University of Amsterdam

No 17586, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We provide evidence that the social norm (expectation) that adults work has a substantial detrimental causal effect on the mental well-being of unemployed men in mid-life, as substantial as, e.g., the detriment of being widowed. As their peers in age retire and the social norm weakens, the mental well-being of the unemployed improves. Using data on individuals aged 50+ from 10 European countries, we identify the social norm of work effect using exogenous variation in the earliest eligibility age for old-age public pensions across countries and birth cohorts.

Keywords: mental well-being; social norm of work; retirement institution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I10 I31 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2024-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-hap, nep-hea, nep-lab, nep-ltv and nep-soc
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