Retired at Last? Past Working Conditions and the Role of Retirement in Health Status

Thomas Barnay () and Éric Defebvre

Annals of Economics and Statistics, 2021, issue 144, 39-74

Abstract: This paper assesses the role played by retirement in health status by considering past working conditions. Using data from the French Health and Professional Path survey, we address the endogeneity biases by setting up a mixed econometric strategy relying on an instrumental variable method using retirement age thresholds and a matching method. Retirement has positive effects on the health of less exposed individuals while yielding considerably greater improvements for workers retiring from highly demanding careers. The highest protective influence appears in the low-skilled male population and exposed to physical constraints, with a decline of 21.2 pp in the probability of declaring poor health and of 13.7 pp in chronic diseases, 16 pp in activity limitations and 8 pp in anxiety or depression. These results advocate the need for preventive measures aimed towards exposures to work strains and/or differentiated retirement schemes according to the nature and intensity of a pensioner's entire work life.

Keywords: Retirement; Working Conditions; Physical Health; Mental Health; Instrumental Variables; Matching Method; France (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C31 C36 I14 J26 J81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15609/annaeconstat2009.144.0039 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Retired at last? Past working conditions and the role of retirement in health status (2021)
Working Paper: Retired at last? Past working conditions and the role of retirement in health status (2021)
Working Paper: Retired at last? Past working conditions and the role of retirement in health status (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adr:anecst:y:2021:i:144:p:39-74

DOI: 10.15609/annaeconstat2009.144.0039

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of Economics and Statistics is currently edited by Laurent Linnemer

More articles in Annals of Economics and Statistics from GENES Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Secretariat General () and Laurent Linnemer ().