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Retirement Effects On Health In Europe, Norma Coe, Gema Zamarro

Gema Zamarro

What are the health impacts of retirement? As talk of raising retirement ages in pensions and social security schemes continues around the world, it is important to know both the costs and benefits for the individual as well as the governments’ budgets. In this paper we use the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) dataset to address this question in a multi-country setting. We use country-specific early and full retirement ages as an instrument for retirement behavior. These statutory retirement ages clearly induce retirement, but are not related to an individual’s health. Exploiting the discontinuities in retirement …