Journal of Pensions Economics and Finance· 2026Q2
Revisiting the effects of health on retirement expectations
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- Q2SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Declines in subjective health and new objective health diagnoses causally decrease the probability of working past ages 62 and 65.
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Key points
- Health shocks causally decrease the probability of working past ages 62 and 65.
- Updated survey data avoids sample selection issues present in prior studies.
- Poor health can lead individuals to expect retirement before Social Security and Medicare eligibility.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract How does health affect retirement expectations? We revisit this question using updated data from the Health and Retirement Study and an event study framework to estimate the causal effects of various health shocks on the self-assessed probabilities of working past older ages. Importantly, recent waves of survey data contain information on expectations for current workers and non-workers, which avoids sample selection issues encountered by previous studies. We find that declines in subjective health status and new diagnoses of objective health conditions decrease the probabilities of working past 62 and 65. Our findings highlight how poor health can cause people to expect to retire before becoming eligible for Social Security and Medicare benefits.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Pensions Economics and Finance, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Demography
DemographySocial Sciences