Volume 20, Number 2 (Spring) 1985
Bazzoli, Gloria J. 1985. "The Early Retirement Decision: New Empirical Evidence on the Influence of Health." Journal of Human Resources 20(2):214-234.
Many studies have examined the influence of health on retirement, but there may be problems with the various health measures used. A major criticism of the most frequently used variables is that they may reflect ex post rationalizations of retirement. In this paper I examine a variety of health variables, focusing directly on the health measurement issue as it relates to retirement research. New measures of health are developed with individual self-evaluations of health status. Unlike most previous findings, the empirical results suggest that economic variables playa more important role than health in retirement decisions.
The author is a Partner in the Health Policy Research Group.
This study was completed while the author was an Economist
with the American Medical Association, Center for Health Policy Research and
while she was a graduate student at Cornell University. Gary Fields and Olivia
Mitchell provided many thoughtful comments on the dissertation from which this
paper is drawn. My colleagues at the Center for Health Policy Research and two
anonymous referees made many useful suggestions on an earlier draft. This
research was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging
to Cornell University. The views and opinions expressed in this paper do not
necessarily reflect the official policy of the AMA.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X