TY  - JOUR
AU  - Charles,Kerwin Kofi
TI  - Is Retirement Depressing?: Labor Force Inactivity and Psychological Well-Being in Later Life
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9033
PY  - 2002
Y2  - June 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9033
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9033.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kerwin Kofi Charles
Harris School of Public Policy
University of Chicago
1155 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773.834.8922
Fax: NA
E-Mail: kcharles@uchicago.edu
AB  - This paper assesses how retirement - defined as permanent labor force non-participation in a man's mature years - affects psychological welfare.  The raw correlation between  retirement and well-being is negative.  But this does not imply causation. In particular, people with idiosyncratically low well-being, or people facing transitory shocks which adversely affect well-being might disproportionately select into retirement.    Discontinuous retirement incentives in the Social Security System, and changes in laws affecting mandatory retirement and Social Security benefits allows the exogenous effect of retirement on happiness to be estimated.  The paper finds that the direct effect of retirement on well-being is positive once the fact that retirement and well being are simultaneously determined is accounted for.
ER  -