Husband's Retirement Research Articles

The Asymmetric Spillover Effects of Retirement on Disability: Evidence From China.

Recent research has explored the spillover effects of retirement on spousal well-being, yet limited attention has been given to the short-term impact on spousal disability. This study explored the asymmetric spillover impact of retirement on spouses' disability severity among a national cohort of urban residents in China. Utilizing 4 waves of data (2011-2018) from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey, we employ a nonparametric regression discontinuity design to estimate the short-term effect of retirement on spousal disability severity. Disability is assessed based on their ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). Furthermore, we conduct heterogeneity analysis stratified by factors such as the husband's retirement status, health conditions, lifestyle behaviors, and the wife's educational level. Additionally, we explore potential mechanisms including changes in health behaviors, emotions, and disease diagnoses. Our findings indicate that wives' retirement has a significant favorable short-term effect on husbands' ADL scores, with a magnitude of -0.644 points (-9.78% relative to baseline). A significant beneficial effect of wives' retirement on the prevalence of husbands' difficulty in dressing, bathing, and eating was observed with substantial magnitudes of 0.075, 0.201, and 0.051 points, respectively. Various heterogeneity analyses and sensitivity tests confirmed the robustness of our results. The positive spillover effect of wives' retirement likely results from reduced negative emotions in husbands. In contrast, husbands' retirement does not affect the prevalence of ADL/IADL disability in their wives. Underscoring the gender asymmetry in the effects of spousal retirement on disability, this study emphasizes the need for tailored policies considering men's and women's distinct disability experiences.

Retirement, housing mobility, downsizing and neighbourhood quality - A causal investigation

This paper provides the first causal evidence on the impact of retirement on housing choices. Our empirical strategy exploits the discontinuity in the eligibility ages for state pension as an instrument for the endogenous retirement decision and controls for time-invariant individual characteristics. The results show that retirement leads to a statistically significant and sizable increase in the probability of making a residential move or the likelihood of becoming outright homeowners. We also find that individuals downsize both physically and financially and tend to move to better neighbourhoods or closer to the coast upon retirement. We additionally discover that some housing adjustments take place up to 6 years before retirement. Moreover, our results reveal significant heterogeneity in the retirement impact by gender, marital status, education, housing tenue, income and wealth. Within traditional heterosexual couple households, housing mobility choices are primarily influenced by the wife's retirement while housing downsizing decisions are only affected by the husband's retirement.

The Impact of Husband`s Early Retirement on Marital Adjustment – Empirical Study on Retired People in Saudi Airlines in Jeddah During 1441 AH –: أثر التقاعد المبكر للزوج على التوافق الزواجي - دراسة ميدانية على المتقاعدين في الخطوط السعودية بجدة خلال عام 1441هـ-

This Study Aimed to Investigate the Impact of Husband Early Retirement On Marital Adjustment, And The Study Has Been Applied On a Group of Early Retired Saudi Airlines Employees Aged Between 45 – 57 Years Old in Jeddah Governorate, The Sample Consisted of 100 Individuals of Both Males and Females (Early Retired Husbands and Their Wives). And It Has Been Used Descriptive Analytical Approach on A Selected Purposive Sample, And The Study Has Been Conducted During the Second Term of the Scholastic Islamic Calendar Year, 1441. It Has Been Used Questionnaire as A Study Tool. The Study Reached Many Results Including That the Nature of Relationship Among More Than One-Third of the Sample of Both Males and Females Has Changed Somehow to Be Better Than Before After Early Retirement, And The Early of Husband Retirement Positively Impacts the Marital Adjustment for Both Husbands and Wives. In Light of the Results of the Study, Some Recommendations Were Presented, Including That the Study Should Be Applied on Substantial Sample of Society’s Members of Early Retirement Whether They Are Military or Civil.

Time devoted to home production and retirement in couples: A panel data analysis

We analyse the effects of retirement of one partner on time devoted to home production by both partners in a couple. Using longitudinal data on couples in Germany, we control for fixed household specific effects and allow for endogeneity of retirement using both a regression discontinuity approach and variation in the early and full retirement age across cohorts and with labour market history. Furthermore, we separately estimate the effect of retirement and the effect of lay-off due to an exogenous shock (i.e. plant closure) for each spouse. For both men and women, a transition from work to retirement significantly increases the amount of their own home production. Similar effects are found for other (layoff induced) exits from work. We find much smaller negative cross-effects of retirement or other exits from work on time spent on home production done by the male partner; the effect of the husband's retirement on the wife's home production is not statistically significant.

Spillover effects of a husband's retirement on a woman's health: Evidence from urban China

Despite an increasing number of studies measuring the effect of retirement on individual well-being, research on spillover effects of one spouse's retirement on another spouse's well-being is limited. If such an effect exists but is not considered, it would result in an underestimation of the total retirement effect. This article examines the effect a man's retirement has on his wife's mental and physical health. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS), I exploit the large increase in the probability of retirement at the legal retirement age for urban male wage earners in China as a natural experiment. I implement a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to compare the health outcomes of women whose husbands recently retired with those whose husbands are close to retiring. Findings indicate that the retirement of her spouse improves a woman's physical and mental well-being, most likely by increasing the frequency of her social interactions and exercise.

Actor and Partner Effects of Health Status, Marital Satisfaction and Self Efficacy on Retirement Preparation of Middle Aged Couples: Actor-Partner Interdependence Model Analysis

This study aimed to identify the actor and partner effects of health status, marital satisfaction, and self efficacy on retirement preparation in middle aged couples using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. Participants were 121 middle aged couples living in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do and Daegu City, Korea. All measures were self-administered. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 20.0. 1) Wife's self efficacy and marital satisfaction showed direct actor and partner effects on retirement preparation in middle aged couples. Wife's health status showed an indirect actor effect through wife's self efficacy and marital satisfaction on wife's retirement preparation, and showed an indirect partner effect through husband's self efficacy on husband's retirement preparation. 2) Husband's self efficacy and marital satisfaction showed only direct actor effect on retirement preparation. Health status among the husbands showed an indirect actor effect on husband's retirement preparation through their self efficacy and marital satisfaction, and an indirect partner effect through wife's marital satisfaction on wife's retirement preparation. 3) The actor effect size of health status on self efficacy and marital satisfaction was larger among husband's than wife's. Additionally, the partner effect size of health status on self efficacy and marital satisfaction was different between the two groups; however, the actor and partner effect size of self efficacy and marital satisfaction on retirement preparation was the same for husband and wife. The results of this study indicate that nursing intervention strategies for improving self efficacy and marital satisfaction are strongly needed to enhance retirement preparation of middle aged couples in Korean community.

Couples’ retirement under individual pension design: A regression discontinuity study for France

Retirement policies are individually designed, but the majority of older workers are partnered, and are likely to coordinate their employment decisions with their spouse. The goal of this study is to estimate the direct and indirect (via the spouse) effects of a pioneer French pension reform on both spouses’ retirement decision. The extent of the reform varies by birth year, which enables us to identify its retirement effects on both spouses, since the husband is, on average, 2 years older than the wife. We use labor-force survey data to implement a sharp regression-discontinuity framework, in which the running variable is the distance of the individual birth month to a certain reference month, as well as an incremental differences-in-differences approach. We find a significant drop in each spouse's probability of retirement. The husband's retirement probability also drops immediately by 1 percentage point if the wife is affected by the reform, while her retirement probability does not respond immediately if he is affected.

Pappa Ante Portas: The effect of the husband's retirement on the wife's mental health in Japan

The “Retired Husband Syndrome”, that affects the mental health of wives of retired men around the world, has been anecdotally documented but never formally investigated. Using Japanese micro-data and the exogenous variation across cohorts in the maximum age of guaranteed employment induced by a 2006 Japanese reform, we estimate that the husband's earlier retirement significantly increases the probability that the wife reports symptoms related to the syndrome. We also find that retirement has a negative effect both on the household's economic situation and on the husband's own mental health, and that the higher economic distress contributes to reducing the wife's mental health.

Antecedents of Gray Divorce: A Life Course Perspective.

Increasingly, older adults are experiencing divorce, yet little is known about the risk factors associated with divorce after age 50 (termed "gray divorce"). Guided by a life course perspective, our study examined whether key later life turning points are related to gray divorce. We used data from the 1998-2012 Health and Retirement Study to conduct a prospective, couple-level discrete-time event history analysis of the antecedents of gray divorce. Our models incorporated key turning points (empty nest, retirement, and poor health) as well as demographic characteristics and economic resources. Contrary to our expectations, the onset of an empty nest, the wife's or husband's retirement, and the wife's or husband's chronic conditions were unrelated to the likelihood of gray divorce. Rather, factors traditionally associated with divorce among younger adults were also salient for older adults. Marital duration, marital quality, home ownership, and wealth were negatively related to the risk of gray divorce. Gray divorce is especially likely to occur among couples who are socially and economically disadvantaged, raising new questions about the consequences of gray divorce for individual health and well-being.

LOVE, TOIL, AND HEALTH INSURANCE: WHY AMERICAN HUSBANDS RETIRE WHEN THEY DO

The provision of health insurance has previously been shown to be an important determinant of retirement timing among older Americans, but the existing literature has largely ignored some aspects of the interspousal dependence of health insurance benefits. Specifically, the literature examines only how retirement may affect the health insurance available to the potential retiree but not how it might affect a spouse's options. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, I find that the impact a husband's retirement might have on a wife's health insurance options has a statistically significant impact on a husband's rate of retirement that is independent of considerations of his own health insurance options. In households where the wife is the only one at risk of losing affordable health insurance if the husband retires, the husband is 30% less likely to retire than if neither spouse is at risk (a 5 percentage point decrease in the retirement rate). Based on these findings, prior research is missing one avenue that changes to the Medicare eligibility age and health insurance policy changes through the Affordable Care Act might impact the labor supply of older workers. (JELI13, J26, J32)

What Happens to the Husband's Retirement Decision When the Wife's Retirement Incentives Change?

Several studies have documented a strong correlation in the timing of spouses’ retirement decisions. However, considerably less is known about the causal impact of one spouse’s retirement incentives on the retirement decision of the other spouse. Before, but not after, 2001 broad categories of Swedish local government workers in female dominated occupations were entitled to retire with full pension benefits already at the age of 63. In this paper, I utilize this reform – together with a micro data set covering the total Swedish population – to estimate the effect of a change in the wife’s incentive on the husband’s retirement behavior. I document a sharp decrease in pension benefit withdrawals among 63 year old wives in the local government sector in the years following the reform. However, I do not find any evidence of a response among husbands. This finding is at odds with most earlier results in the literature.

Joint Leisure Before and after Retirement: A Double Regression Discontinuity Approach

The economic litterature on retirement argues that individuals in a couple tend to retire at a choice time because of externalities in leisure. Ealier studies dit not investigate the extent to which partners actually spend more leisure time together upon retiring. Exploiting the law on early retirement age in France, we use a regression discontinuity approach to identify the causal effect of retirement on hours of leisure, separate and together, of the man and woman in a couple. We use a sample of couples drawn from a French Time Use Survey for the analysis. Using four different definitions of joint leisure, we conclude that generally both separate and joint leisure hours of partners increase significantly upon own retirement. In particular, the hours of leisure spent together by the couple increase on average by about an hour and a half per day upon wife's retirement and by less than an hour upon husband's retirement. The positive effect of partners' retirement on joint leisure is close in size to that on separate leisure or house work hours of partners.

Men with Health Insurance and the Women Who Love Them: The Effect of a Husband's Retirement on His Wife's Health Insurance Coverage

Health insurance coverage in the years prior to retirement is particularly important because it protects the household from the financial risks of uninsurance as well as the health consequences of delaying care while uninsured. While results from the retirement job lock literature show that those who would lack coverage after retirement continue to work to maintain benefits, little work has explored the types of health insurance choices made by couples after retirement. It may be difficult for a married man to coordinate continuous coverage for a younger wife whose primary source of coverage has been from the husband, and thus households may pay more for non-group coverage or be exposed to the risks of uninsurance. This paper studies a panel of married couples from the 1992-2004 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to study the types of health insurance decisions households make around the time of retirement. Results indicate that households seem to do well at avoiding uninsurance at the time of retirement, but may make high cost choices in order to insure the wife. Men switch into Medicare or coverage from their wife at retirement if they lose their own coverage, but a large fraction of women take-up privately purchased coverage. In fact, the transition from husband's coverage to privately purchased coverage is twice as large in periods when the husband retires than otherwise. Transitions to uninsurance are lower in periods of retirement than at other times, suggesting that men continue to work if either spouse would lose coverage. Though less risky, insurance purchased in the non-group market is expensive relative to employer-sponsored coverage. Thus, married households may need to increase savings to pay for health insurance that bridges the gap until the wife can claim Medicare at age 65.

Men with Health Insurance and the Women Who Love Them: The Effect of a Husband's Retirement on His Wife's Health Insurance Coverage

Health insurance coverage in the years prior to retirement is particularly important because it protects the household from the financial risks of uninsurance as well as the health consequences of delaying care while uninsured. While results from the retirement job lock literature show that those who would lack coverage after retirement continue to work to maintain benefits, little work has explored the types of health insurance choices made by couples after retirement. It may be difficult for a married man to coordinate continuous coverage for a younger wife whose primary source of coverage has been from the husband, and thus households may pay more for non-group coverage or be exposed to the risks of uninsurance. This paper studies a panel of married couples from the 1992-2004 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to study the types of health insurance decisions households make around the time of retirement. Results indicate that households seem to do well at avoiding uninsurance at the time of retirement, but may make high cost choices in order to insure the wife. Men switch into Medicare or coverage from their wife at retirement if they lose their own coverage, but a large fraction of women take-up privately purchased coverage. In fact, the transition from husband’s coverage to privately purchased coverage is twice as large in periods when the husband retires than otherwise. Transitions to uninsurance are lower in periods of retirement than at other times, suggesting that men continue to work if either spouse would lose coverage. Though less risky, insurance purchased in the non-group market is expensive relative to employer-sponsored coverage. Thus, married households may need to increase savings to pay for health insurance that bridges the gap until the wife can claim Medicare at age 65.

Retirement and marital decision making: Effects on retirement satisfaction

This study explores how partner's employment and preretirement decision‐making structures affect retirement satisfaction, using pooled data from Waves 1 to 4 of the Health and Retirement Surveys. Based on resource theory, the analyses indicate that retired husbands are least satisfied if their wives remain employed and had more say in decisions prior to the husband's retirement. Retired wives are least satisfied if their husbands remain employed and had more say in decisions prior to the wife's retirement. These results suggest that retirement transitions undermine married retirees’ satisfaction if they enhance the other partner's influence in the relationship. More research should address linkages between work and family realms during transitions such as retirement and explore the negotiation processes surrounding such transitions.

Effect of electroconvulsive therapy for the treatment of senile depression with marked pseudohysterical symptoms

AbstractTwo elderly patients with prolonged depression and prominent pseudohysterical symptoms were successively treated using electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Patient 1, a 71‐year‐old woman, developed depression in anticipation of her husband's retirement from his post as a college president and his receiving of a civilian decoration. She became bedridden because of the adverse effects of the antidepressants, and she was admitted to our hospital. Initial treatment was efficacious to some extent; however, after moving from a private room to an eight‐person ward, she began to exhibit passive‐aggressive behavior and seemed to seek attention. Her diagnosis and treatment was difficult, but ECT relieved her symptoms. Patient 2, a 74‐year‐old man, developed depression after experiencing domestic trivialities. Treatment as an outpatient produced numerous adverse effects and was of little effect, so the patient was admitted to hospital. As was seen in patient 1, this patient was moved to a ward room after he showed an initial improvement, but his condition deteriorated and he began to show passive‐aggressive behavior; ECT also relieved his symptoms. A multidisciplinary strategy, including ECT during the early period of treatment, might be effective for the treatment of senile depression.

Social security, pensions and retirement behaviour within the family

AbstractThis paper estimates a structural model of family retirement using US data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). It provides further insight into household retirement decision making and the reasons for interdependence in the retirement decisions of each spouse. Improvements in HRS data and matched employer provided pension histories allow more precise identification of key parameters governing interdependent behaviour within the household.In an earlier study we found that interdependence was due to preferences rather than coordination of retirement incentives in the budget, and in particular that it is not a correlation in preferences, but the appearance of the spouse's retirement status in the husband's and wife's utility function that is largely responsible for coordination of retirement between spouses. We now find that a measure of how much each spouse values being able to spend time in retirement with the other accounts for a good portion of that apparent interdependence. For the wife, the husband's retirement status influences her retirement decision only if she values spending time in retirement with her husband. For husbands, the effect of having the wife already retired on his retirement decision is roughly doubled if he enjoys spending time in retirement with his wife, but there is some effect even if he does not. This is consistent with our earlier findings that the husband is more influenced by having a retired spouse than the wife is. The increase in the extent of the dependence of the wife's labour supply on the husband's retirement from our past work probably is traceable to better measurement of the opportunity set facing the husband in HRS data.Once estimated, we use the model to investigate the labour supply effects of alternative social security policies, examining the effect of dividing credit for earnings evenly between spouses, or of basing social security benefits on the amounts accumulated in private accounts. Both policies change the relative importance of spouse and survivor social security benefits within the household and both raise the relative reward to work later in the life cycle. The incentives created are modest, and retirement responds accordingly. Nevertheless, at some ages, such as 65, there may be as much as a 6% increase in the old age work force under privatized accounts. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effects of Retirement on Marital Conflict Tactics

This study explores whether spouses' retirement influences their use of selected conflict tactics using panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households ( N = 559 couples). The data indicate that husbands but not wives perceive a decline in heated arguments on the wife's retirement. This change is partially due to a decline in disagreements. In addition, husbands' retirement appears to enhance engagement in calm discussions by the husband if either spouse is strongly attached to the marriage, whereas low attachment of either spouse is linked to a decline in calm discussions after the husband's retirement. Retirement-related changes in the use of avoidance tactics are contingent on spouses' dependence on the relationship.

Joint Role Investments and Synchronization of Retirement: A Sequential Approach to Couples' Retirement Timing

We examine the linkage of couples' late-life work exit patterns with earlier work and family roles. Using data from the 1982 U.S. Social Security New Beneficiary Study, we estimate a sequential model of retirement timing of husbands and wives. The results indicate that early investments in work and family roles, as well as late-life characteristics, are associated with how older couples coordinate retirement timing. A woman's employment during the child-rearing years is associated with her earlier retirement, especially following her husband's retirement. The findings reveal the importance of the early “family organizational economy” in defining sequences of family events that combine with late-life events to influence the sequential synchronization of retirement timing.

Choice Of Health Insurance And The Two-Worker Household

DataWatch Health AffairsVol. 10, No. 1 Choice Of Health Insurance And The Two-Worker HouseholdClaudia L. Schur and Amy K. Taylor Affiliationssenior policy analyst at the Project HOPE Center for Health Affairs in Chevy Chase, Maryland.senior economist at the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research in Rockville, Maryland.PUBLISHED:Spring 1991No Accesshttps://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.10.1.155AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextView PDFPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions View articleTOPICSPrivate health insuranceAccess to careClinical careHealth benefitsProgram eligibilityCost containmentMarketsCosts and spendingChildren's healthPopulations Loading Comments... Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. DetailsExhibitsReferencesRelated Article MetricsCitations: Crossref 13 History Published online 1 January 1991 InformationCopyright © by Project HOPE: The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe views expressed in this DataWatch are those of the authors, and no official endorsement by the Project HOPE Center for Health Affairs, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, or the Department of Health and Human Services is intended or should be inferred. A preliminary version of this research was presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Public Health Association, November 1988, in Boston, Massachusetts.PDF downloadCited ByThe effect of double coverage on health care utilization of childrenApplied Economics, Vol. 42, No. 24Occupational Status and Health Insurance Among Immigrants: Effects by Generation, Length of Residence in U.S., and Race16 September 2008 | Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, Vol. 12, No. 3Insurance Arrangements Among Married Couples: Analysis of Benefit Substitution and Compensating Differentials28 August 2009 | Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Vol. 30, No. 4Men with Health Insurance and the Women Who Love Them: The Effect of a Husband's Retirement on His Wife's Health Insurance CoverageSSRN Electronic JournalEmployer Health Insurance Offerings and Employee Enrollment Decisions24 May 2005 | Health Services Research, Vol. 40, No. 5p1Does Having Two Earners in the Household Matter for Understanding How Well Employer-Based Health Insurance Works?18 August 2016 | Medical Care Research and Review, Vol. 62, No. 2The Impact of the Health Insurance Market on Small Firm Employment18 February 2004 | Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol. 71, No. 1Labor Market Implications of State Small Group Health Insurance Reform19 August 2016 | Public Finance Review, Vol. 31, No. 6Do those with more formal education have better health insurance opportunities?Economics of Education Review, Vol. 17, No. 3The Impact of Health on Job Mobility: A Measure of Job Lock25 June 2016 | ILR Review, Vol. 51, No. 2Consumer Health Plan Choice: Current Knowledge and Future DirectionsAnnual Review of Public Health, Vol. 18, No. 1The Effects of Employer-Provided Health Insurance on Worker Mobility25 June 2016 | ILR Review, Vol. 49, No. 3Defining Underinsurance: A Conceptual Framework for Policy and Empirical Analysis5 August 2016 | Medical Care Review, Vol. 50, No. 2