Pappa Ante Portas: The effect of the husband's retirement on the wife's mental health in Japan

Marco Bertoni and Giorgio Brunello

Social Science & Medicine, 2017, vol. 175, issue C, 135-142

Abstract: The “Retired Husband Syndrome”, that affects the mental health of wives of retired men around the world, has been anecdotally documented but never formally investigated. Using Japanese micro-data and the exogenous variation across cohorts in the maximum age of guaranteed employment induced by a 2006 Japanese reform, we estimate that the husband's earlier retirement significantly increases the probability that the wife reports symptoms related to the syndrome. We also find that retirement has a negative effect both on the household's economic situation and on the husband's own mental health, and that the higher economic distress contributes to reducing the wife's mental health.

Keywords: Japan; Mental health; Stress; Couples; Retirement; Pension reforms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 I1 I3 J14 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:175:y:2017:i:c:p:135-142

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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.01.012

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