Impacts from Delaying Access to Retirement Benefits on Welfare Receipt and Expenditure: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Umut Oguzoglu (), Cain Polidano () and Ha Vu

No 10014, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Governments are responding to fiscal pressures associated with aging populations by increasing the eligibility age for publicly-funded retirement benefits. However, recent studies show large resulting increases in the receipt of alternative payments, which raises concern that welfare savings are offset by increased inflows into alternative payments. Using administrative data to examine the impacts of female eligibility age increases in Australia, we find little evidence of this. Instead, most of the increase in receipt is because the delay mechanically extends the receipt time of people already on alternative payments. The implication is that fiscal savings are not being jeopardized by opportunistic behaviour.

Keywords: retirement; welfare substitution; aging population (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H53 J01 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2016-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published - published in: Economic Record, 2020, 96 (312), 65–86

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Related works:
Journal Article: Impacts from Delaying Access to Retirement Benefits on Welfare Receipt and Expenditure: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2020)
Working Paper: Impacts from Delaying Access to Retirement Benefits on Welfare Receipt and Expenditure: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2016)
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