Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and IZA, Milan, Italy.
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy.
Health Econ. 2018 Dec;27(12):2030-2050. doi: 10.1002/hec.3819. Epub 2018 Aug 21.
We investigate the causal impact of retirement on health care utilization using SHARE data for 10 European countries. We show that the number of doctor's visits and the probability of visiting a doctor more than four times a year (our measures of health care utilization) increase after retirement. The increase in health care utilization is found to depend mainly on the years spent in retirement, suggesting that adjustment may take time. We find evidence of heterogeneous effects by gender and across different patterns of time use prior to retirement (i.e., working long hours and combined work and out-of-work activities). Overall, the empirical findings suggest that the increase in health care utilization is consistent with the decrease in the opportunity cost of time faced by individuals when they retire.
我们利用 10 个欧洲国家的 SHARE 数据，研究了退休对医疗保健利用的因果影响。我们发现，医生就诊次数和每年就诊超过四次的概率（我们衡量医疗保健利用的指标）在退休后增加。这种医疗保健利用的增加主要取决于退休年限，这表明调整可能需要时间。我们发现，性别和退休前不同的时间利用模式（即长时间工作和工作与非工作活动相结合）存在异质效应的证据。总的来说，实证结果表明，医疗保健利用的增加与个人退休后面临的时间机会成本的减少是一致的。
