Kämpfen Fabrice, Maurer Jürgen
Institute of Health Economics and Management, Department of Economics, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Institute of Health Economics and Management, Department of Economics, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA, USA.
J Health Econ. 2016 Jan;45:91-102. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.12.001. Epub 2015 Dec 23.
Physical activity is crucial for maintaining and improving health, especially at advanced ages. While retirement increases the amount of time available for physical activity, there is only limited evidence regarding the causal effect of retirement on recommended levels of physical activity. Addressing this gap in the literature, we use data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study to estimate the causal impact of retirement on meeting the federal government's 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. Using official early and normal retirement ages as instruments for retirement, our causal IV analyses suggest significant positive effects of retirement on meeting the Guidelines. These effects are robust with regard to the treatment of unobserved individual-specific heterogeneity, the measurement of guideline compliance, the definition of retirement and respondents' health insurance status. We also show that the effects of retirement on physical activity are larger for persons with higher levels of education and wealth.
体育活动对于维持和改善健康至关重要，尤其是在老年阶段。虽然退休增加了可用于体育活动的时间，但关于退休对推荐体育活动水平的因果效应的证据有限。为填补这一文献空白，我们使用美国健康与退休研究的数据来估计退休对符合联邦政府2008年《美国人体育活动指南》的因果影响。以法定提前退休年龄和正常退休年龄作为退休的工具变量，我们的因果工具变量分析表明退休对符合指南有显著的积极影响。这些影响在处理未观察到的个体特定异质性、指南遵守情况的测量、退休的定义以及受访者的健康保险状况方面是稳健的。我们还表明，退休对体育活动的影响对于教育程度和财富水平较高的人更大。
