Working Conditions, Retirement and Health - Longitudinal Evidence from Europe and the US

We provide new evidence on the effect of retirement on health by exploring the panel dimension of three major old-age surveys. We constructed a harmonized dataset using all available waves of HRS, ELSA and SHARE data, which enabled us to conduct comparative cross-country panel analyses. Different health measures were constructed to assess physical and cognitive health during the transition from work to retirement. We further included harmonized measures of working conditions to examine the role of the quality of work within the framework of the health effects of retirement. By applying instrumental variables fixed effects regressions, we were able to control for individual heterogeneity and endogeneity of the retirement decision by using the statutory retirement ages for the respective countries as instrumental variables. Our results suggest that overall, retirement has a positive effect on physical health and a negative effect on cognitive health. Retiring from a job with low work quality intensifies the positive effect on physical health.