ABSTRACT
Retiring is a labor market transition that affects the personal life of individuals. Retiring may have short-term or long-term effects on mental health, physical health, or even mortality. Empirical studies show health outcomes varying from negative to positive with many studies finding no health effects at all. This range of outcomes is partly related to heterogeneity in terms of personal characteristics, type of job, institutional arrangements, and whether retiring was voluntary or mandatory. However, part of the variation in outcomes also relates to differences in how health is measured and the methods used to establish causality from retirement to health. The variation in outcomes makes it hard to advocate evidence-based retirement policies that account for health effects. In the policy debate on the increase of the statutory retirement age or the age of eligibility to early retirement, health effects cannot be an unimportant ingredient. Introducing more flexibility in the timing of retirement may be the only policy measure that is unambiguously beneficial for the health of all workers.
