Belloni Michele, Meschi Elena, Pasini Giacomo
Department of Economics, Università Ca' Foscari, Venice, Italy.
Health Econ. 2016 Nov;25 Suppl 2:126-140. doi: 10.1002/hec.3377.
This paper investigates the causal impact of retirement on late-life mental health, a growing concern for public health, because major depressive disorders are the second leading cause of disability. We shed light on the role of economic conditions in shaping the effect of retirement on mental health by exploiting time and regional variation in the severity of the economic crisis across 10 European countries during 2004-2013. We use data from four waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and address the potential endogeneity of the retirement decision to mental health by applying a fixed-effects instrumental variables approach. The results indicate that retirement improves the mental health of men but not that of women. This effect is stronger for blue-collar men working in regions that have been severely hit by the economic crisis. These findings may be explained by the worsening of working conditions and the rise in job insecurity stemming from the economic downturn: under these circumstances, exit from the labour force is perceived as a relief. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
本文探讨退休对晚年心理健康的因果影响，这一问题日益受到公共卫生领域的关注，因为重度抑郁症是导致残疾的第二大主要原因。我们利用2004年至2013年期间10个欧洲国家经济危机严重程度的时间和区域差异，来阐明经济状况在塑造退休对心理健康影响方面的作用。我们使用了来自欧洲健康、老龄化和退休调查四轮的数据，并通过应用固定效应工具变量法来解决退休决策对心理健康的潜在内生性问题。结果表明，退休改善了男性的心理健康，但对女性没有影响。对于在受经济危机严重冲击地区工作的蓝领男性来说，这种影响更强。这些发现可能是由于经济衰退导致工作条件恶化和工作不安全感增加所致：在这种情况下，退出劳动力市场被视为一种解脱。版权所有© 2016约翰·威利父子有限公司。
