The Effect of Retirement on Cardiovascular Disease: Evidence from Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (Share)

Jiaru Liu , King's College London

This study investigates the short- and longer-term relationship between retirement and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Using micro-level data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we employ an Instrumental Variable Fixed Effects (IV-FE) approach to estimate both the immediate and lagged impact of retirement on CVD and further explore the underlying mechanisms and potential heterogeneity in effects. Our findings suggest that retirement does not exert a significant impact on heart attacks in the short term, but the probability of having a heart attack increases by almost 7% in the long term. Retirement does not appear to affect strokes. We further investigate metabolic, behavioral, and psychosocial risk factors as potential mechanisms for this relationship. We show that a decline in mental health, which is a psychosocial risk factor, may contribute to adverse cardiovascular outcomes post-retirement.

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 Presented in Session 29. Flash session Morbidity