Does Retirement Change the Age Effect on Health?: Evidence from Japan

Masaaki Mizuochi , Nanzan University

This study investigates the retirement effect on health of elderly men in Japan in terms of short- and long-term effect. To deal with the endogeneity problem of retirement and health, Instrumental Variables method is used by exploiting the pension reform as instruments. The results indicate that retirement has an immediate improving effect on self-rated health and depression, but no effect on difficulty in ADL and any diseases. Retirement also increases the rate of health deterioration with age. These findings suggest that the effect of retirement on health can be estimated positive, negative, or no effect depending on the length of observed period and the size of short- and long-term effect of retirement. This may be one of the reasons of the mixed results in the literature.

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 Presented in Session 89. Employment, Occupational Characteristics, and Health