TY  - JOUR
AU  - García-Gómez,Pilar
AU  - Jiménez-Martín,Sergi
AU  - Castelló,Judit Vall
TI  - Health, Disability and Pathways to Retirement in Spain
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17048
PY  - 2011
Y2  - May 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17048
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17048.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Pilar Garcia-Gomez
Erasmus School of Economics
P.O. Box 1738; 3000 DR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
E-Mail: garciagomez@ese.eur.nl

Sergi Jimenez-Martin
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27
08005 BARCELONA (SPAIN)
E-Mail: sergi.jimenez@upf.edu

judit vall castello
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27
08005 BARCELONA (SPAIN)
E-Mail: judit.vallcastello@governance.unimaas.nl
M3  - presented at "International Social Security Conference", May 2, 2011
AB  - In this paper we analyze the trends in labor force participation and transitions to benefit programs of older workers in relation to health trends as well as recent Social Security reforms. Our preliminary conclusions are pessimistic regarding the effect of health improvements on the labor market attachment of older workers since we show that despite the large improvements in the mortality rates among older individuals in Spain, the employment rates of individuals older than fifty-five remain lower than the ones observed in the late 1970s. Some caution should remain in our conclusions as the evidence on health trends is inconclusive. Regarding the effect of Social Security reforms, we find that both the 1997 and the 2002 reform decreased the stock into old-age benefits at the cost of an increased share of the participation into disability. Finally, we find that there was a significant increase in the outflow from employment into disability after the 2002 reform.
ER  -