Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/201282 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
ETLA Working Papers No. 67
Publisher: 
The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA), Helsinki
Abstract: 
We quantify the impact of old-age retirement on health using longitudinal Finnish register data for the period 2000–2012, which allows for a strict isolation of the effects of transition from work to retirement for both mental and physical health indicators. We use the lowest statutory eligibility age for full old-age pensions, 63 years, as an instrument in FE-IV estimation to ensure causal inference. We find that (1) retirement moderately decreases the use of antidepressants, especially for women; (2) the beneficial effects of retirement on the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal conditions are smaller and more diffused; (3) there is no robust evidence that retirement effects vary systematically among socioeconomic groups, although more robust declines in musculoskeletal diseases were observed among manual-labour men; and (4) the beneficial effects in antidepressant use can be extended to apply to most Finns retiring at ages 62–64 based on our test of external validity.
Subjects: 
Health
Health behaviour
Retirement
Retirement policies
Demographic economics
JEL: 
I10
I12
J26
J18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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