The Effect of Heavy Smoking on Early Retirement: An Instrumental Variable Approach

Alessio Gaggero (), O. Ajnakina and R.a Hackett

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: The extent to which heavy smoking and early retirement are causally related remains to be determined. To overcome the endogeneity of heavy smoking behaviour, we employ a novel approach by exploiting Mendelian Randomisation and use genetic predisposition to heavy smoking, as measured with a polygenic risk score (PGS), as an instrumental variable. A total of 3578 participants from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (mean age 64.41 years) had data on smoking behaviour, employment and a heavy smoking PGS. Heavy smoking was indexed as smoking at least 20 cigarettes a day. Early retirement was classified as retiring before state pension age. Our results show that being a heavy smoker increases significantly the probability of early retirement. Results were robust to a battery of robustness checks and a falsification test. Overall, our findings support a causal pathway from heavy smoking to early retirement.

Keywords: smoking; early retirement; polygenic risk scores; instrumental variable; mendelian randomisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-eur, nep-hea and nep-isf
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:hectdg:21/12

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