Skip to main content
Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics
Download PDF

Health Shocks and the Hazard Rate of Early Retirement in the ECHP

Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics volume 144, pages 323–335 (2008)Cite this article

Summary

In this paper we use discrete-time proportional hazard models with internationally comparable longitudinal data from the full eight waves of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) to study the relationship between retirement, health levels and health shocks in nine European countries. The results show a consistency of effect with only small variation in magnitude both for latent health stock variables as well as the subjective SAH measures. This is compatible with previous findings that declining health is associated with an increased probability of retirement. Additionally a three-level graduated acute health shock variable was created, that shows evidence of a gradient in the effect.

References

  • Bound, J. (1990) “Self-Reported versus Objective Measures of Health in Retirement Models”, Journal of Human Resources, 26, pp. 106–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bound, J., Schoenbaum, M., Sttnebrickner, T. R. and Waidmann, T. (1999) “The Dynamic Effects of Health on the Labor Force Transitions of Older Workers”, Labour Economics, 6, pp. 179–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Currie, J. and Madrian, B. (1999) “Health, Health Insurance and the Labor Market”, in: Ashenfelter, O. and Card, D., Handbook of Labor Economics. Vol 3C. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deschryvere, M. (2004) “Health and Retirement Decisions: An Update of the Literature”, Discussion Paper No. 932. The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, Helsinki, Finland.

  • Disney, R., Emmerson, C. and Wakefield, M. (2006) “Ill Health and Retirement in Britain: A Panel Data-Based Analysis”, Journal of Health Economics, 25, pp. 621–649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duval, R. (2003) “Retirement Behaviour in OECD Countries: Impact of Old-Age Pension Schemes and other Social Transfers”, OECD Economic Studies No. 37, 2003/2.

  • Gruber, J. and Wise, D. (1998) “Social Security Programs and Retirement: An International Comparison”, American Economic Review, 88, pp. 158–163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gruber, J. and Wise, D. (1999) Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hernandez-Quevedo, C., Jones, A. M., Lopez-Nicolas, A. and Rice, N. (2006) “Socioeconomic Inequalities in Health: A Comparative Longitudinal Analysis using the European Community Household Panel”, Social Science and Medicine, 63, pp. 1246–1261.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, S. P. (1995) “Easy Estimation Methods for Discrete-Time Duration Models”, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 57, pp. 129–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, A. M., Koolman, X. and Rice, N. (2006) “Health-Related Non-Response in the British Household Panel Survey and the European Community Household Panel: Using Inverse Proability Weighted Estimators in Non-Linear Models”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A (Statistics in Society), 169, pp. 543–569.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicoletti, C. and Peracchi, F. (2005) “Survey Response and Survey Characteristics: Microlevel Evidence from the European Community Household Panel”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A (Statistics in Society), 168, pp. 763–781.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peracchi, F. (2002) “The European Community Household Panel: A Review”, Empirical Economics, 27, pp. 63–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prentice, R. and Gloekler, L. (1978) “Regression Analysis of grouped Survival Data with Application to Breast Cancer Data”, Biometrics, 34, pp. 57–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riphahn, R. T. (1999) “Income and Employment Effects of Health Shocks. A Test Case for the German Welfare State”, Journal of Population Economics, 12, pp. 363–389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rice, N., Roberts, J. and Jones, A. M. (2006) “Health and Retirement in the UK: Duration Analysis of the BHPS”, HEDG Working Paper #06/13, University of York.

  • Stern, S. (1989) “Measuring the Effect of Disability on Labor Force Participation”, Journal of Human Resources, 24, pp. 361–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Women’s and Infants’ Health, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Ronald Hagan

  2. Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, UK

    Andrew M. Jones

  3. Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York, UK

    Nigel Rice

Authors
  1. Ronald Hagan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andrew M. Jones
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nigel Rice
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

Acknowledgements: The European Community Household Panel Users’ Database, version of December 2003, was supplied by Eurostat. We are grateful to Cristina Hernández Quevedo for her assistance in preparing the version of the ECHP-UDB that was used in this paper. Material from this paper was presented at the Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), Lausanne, March 2008.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hagan, R., Jones, A.M. & Rice, N. Health Shocks and the Hazard Rate of Early Retirement in the ECHP. Swiss J Economics Statistics 144, 323–335 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03399257

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03399257

JEL-Classification

Keywords