Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-246sw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-14T12:28:10.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Assessing the impact of partial early retirement on self-perceived health, depression level and quality of life in Belgium: a longitudinal perspective using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2018

Jacques Wels
Jacques Wels*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Centre Metices, Université libre de Bruxelles and FNRS, Brussels, Belgium
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For about 20 years, Belgium has successfully implemented working-time reduction policies for the older workforce. However, the impact of such policies on health has not been explored yet. Using longitudinal data from Waves 5 and 6 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (N = 1,498), the paper assesses whether working-time reduction in late career is associated with a change in self-perceived health, depression (EURO-D) and quality of life (CASP-12). For that purpose, ordered logit and ordinary least squares regressions are performed, using four different models for defining working-time reductions. Results show that people reducing working time with or without additional social benefits tend to have a poorer self-perceived health at follow-up compared with people keeping the same or increasing working time. By comparison, people moving to retirement are more likely to present a better self-perceived health, depression level and quality of life compared to people increasing or keeping the same working-time level. Although, introducing an interaction effect, the paper shows that the change in quality of life for respondents reducing working hours in addition to social benefits tends to be less negative for those who wished to retire early at baseline than for those who did not.

Keywords

working timeself-perceived healthCASP-12EURO-DSurvey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)longitudinal
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , March 2020 , pp. 512 - 536
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Albanese, A, Thuy, Y, Albanese, A and Cockx, B (2015) Working time reductions at the end of the career: do they prolong the time spent in employment? IZA Discussion Paper, 9619: 51.Google Scholar
Andor, L (2012) Employment trends and policies for older workers in the recession, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions: 1–12, ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=9590&langId=enGoogle Scholar
Benzeval, M, Bond, L, Campbell, M, Egan, M, Lorenc, T, Petticrew, M and Popham, F (2014) How Does Money Influence Health? York, UK: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Berg, P, Hamman, MK, Piszczek, MM and Ruhm, CJ (2015) Can policy facilitate partial retirement? Evidence from Germany. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, NBER Working Paper 21478: 49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bluestone, B and Rose, S (1998) The macroeconomics of work time. Review of Social Economy LVI, 425–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borrat-Besson, C, Ryser, V-A and Goncalves, J (2015) An evaluation of the CASP-12 scale used in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to measure Quality of Life among people aged 50 + . Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences, Geneva, FORS Working Paper 4.Google Scholar
Börsch-Supan, A (2018) Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Wave 6. Release version: 6.1.1. SHARE-ERIC. Data set. DOI: 10.6103/SHARE.w6.611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bound, J (1991) Self-reported vs. objective measures of health in retirement models. Journal of Human Resources 26, 106–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burton-Jeangros, C, Editors, DB, Howe, LD, Firestone, R, Tilling, K and Lawlor, DA (Eds) (2015) A Life Course Perspective on Health Trajectories and Transitions. Springer, Series Volume 4, 213. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-20484-0.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calvo, E (2006) Does working longer make people healthier and happier? Work Opportunities for Older Americans 2, 14.Google Scholar
Castro-Costa, E, Dewey, M, Stewart, R, Banerjee, S and Huppert, F (2007) Prevalence of depressive symptoms and syndromes in later life in ten European countries: the SHARE study. British Journal of Psychiatry 191, 393–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Charles, KK and DeCicca, P (2007) Hours flexibility and retirement. Economic Inquiry 45, 251–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claes, T (2012) La prépension conventionnelle (1974–2012). Courrier hebdomadaire du CRISP 2154/2155, 5–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cockx, B, Goebel, C and Robin, S (2010) L'effet sur l'emploi du complément de revenu au travail à temps partiel en Belgique. Revue économique 61, 299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coe, NB and Zamarro, G (2011) Retirement effects on health in Europe. Journal of Health Economics 30, 77–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, G, Åkerstedt, T, Nachreiner, F, Baltieri, F, Carvalhais, J, Folkard, S, Dresen, MF, Gadbois, C, Gartner, J, Sukalo, HG, Härmä, M, Kandolin, I, Sartori, S and Silvério, J (2004) Flexible working hours, health, and well-being in Europe: some considerations from a SALTSA project. Chronobiology International 21, 831–844.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dejemeppe, M, Smith, C and der Linden, B (2015) Did the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact increase the employment rate of older workers in Belgium? A macro-econometric evaluation. IZA Journal of Labor Policy 4, 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Gessa, G, Corna, LM, Platts, LG, Worts, D, McDonough, P, Sacker, A, Price, D and Glaser, K (2016) Is being in paid work beyond state pension age beneficial for health? Evidence from England using a life-course approach. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.Google ScholarPubMed
Di Gessa, G and Grundy, E (2014) The relationship between active ageing and health using longitudinal data from Denmark, France, Italy and England. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 68, 261–267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drobnič, S, Beham, B and Präg, P (2010) Good job, good life? Working conditions and quality of life in Europe. Social Indicators Research 99, 205–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubois, H, Runceanu, G and Anderson, R (2016) Extending Working Lives Through Flexible Retirement Schemes: Partial Retirement. Luxembourg, Publications Office of the European Union, Ref. n°EF1629:88.Google Scholar
Fisher, GG, Chaffee, DS and Sonnega, A (2016) Retirement timing: a review and recommendations for future research. Work, Aging and Retirement 2, 230–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graetz, B (1993) Health consequences of employment and unemployment: longitudinal evidence for young men and women. Social Science & Medicine 36, 715–724.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hayes, T, Usami, S, Jacobucci, R and McArdle, JJ (2015) Using Classification and Regression Trees (CART) and random forests to analyze attrition: results from two simulations. Psychology and Aging 30, 911–929.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Howel, D (2012) Interpreting and evaluating the CASP-19 quality of life measure in older people. Age and Ageing 41, 612–617.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Idler, EL and Benyamini, Y (1997) Self-rated health and mortality: a review of twenty-seven community studies. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 38, 21–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jousten, A, Lefèbvre, M, Perelman, S and Pestieau, P (2010) The effects of early retirement on youth unemployment: the case of Belgium. In Gruber, J and Wise, DA (eds), Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: The Relationship to Youth Employment. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 47–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kober, R and Eggleton, IRC (2005) The effect of different types of employment on quality of life. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research 49, 756–760.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewis, S, Anderson, D, Lyonette, C, Payne, N and Wood, S (2017) Public sector austerity cuts in Britain and the changing discourse of work–life balance. Work, Employment and Society 31, 586–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddox, GL and Douglass, EB (1973) Self-assessment of health: a longitudinal study of elderly subjects. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 14, 87–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Palier, B (2002) De la crise aux réformes de l’État-providence: le cas français en perspective comparée. Revue française de sociologie 43, 243–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platts, LG, Netuveli, G, Webb, E, Zins, M, Goldberg, M, Blane, D and Wahrendorf, M (2013) Physical occupational exposures during working life and quality of life after labour market exit: results from the GAZEL study. Aging & Mental Health 7863, 37–41.Google Scholar
Prince, MJ, Reischies, F, Beekman, AT, Fuhrer, R, Jonker, C, Kivela, SL, Lawlor, BA, Lobo, A, Magnusson, H, Fichter, M, van Oyen, H, Roelands, M, Skoog, I, Turrina, C and Copeland, JR (1999) Development of the EURO-D scale. A European-Union initiative to compare symptoms of depression in 14 European centres. British Journal of Psychiatry 174, 330–338.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rice, NE, Lang, IA, Henley, W and Melzer, D (2011) Common health predictors of early retirement: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Age and Ageing 40, 54–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Salais, R (2004) La politique des indicateurs. Du taux de chômage au taux d'emploi dans la stratégie européenne pour l'emploi (SEE). In Zimmermann, B (ed.), Les sciences sociales à l’épreuve de l'action. Le savant, le politique et l'Europe. Paris: Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, pp. 1–28.Google Scholar
Siegrist, J, Wahrendorf, M, Von Dem Knesebeck, O, Jürges, H and Börsch-Supan, A (2007) Quality of work, well-being, and intended early retirement of older employees – baseline results from the SHARE Study. European Journal of Public Health 17, 62–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sorée, A (2015) 27.000 prépensionnés vont devoir retourner sur le marché du travail. L’écho.Google Scholar
Tang, F and Ishwaran, H (2017) Random forest missing data algorithms. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining 10, 363–377.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verbakel, E and Diprete, T (2007) Non-working time, income inequality, and quality of life comparisons. The Case of the U.S. vs. the Netherlands. Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, New York, NY, ISERP Working Paper 07-16.Google Scholar
Waddell, G and Burton, AK (2006) Is Work Good for Your Health and Well-Being?. UK: The Stationery Office, 257.Google Scholar
Wels, J (2014) Le partage d'emploi entre générations. Analyse des effets régulateurs et redistributifs de la réduction du temps de travail en fin de carrière sur l'emploi des jeunes. Recherches Sociologiques et Anthropologiques 45, 157–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wels, J (2016) The statistical analysis of end of working life: methodological and sociological issues raised by the average effective age of retirement. Social Indicators Research 129, 291–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wels, J (2018) Are there health benefits of being unionized in late career? A longitudinal approach using HRS. American Journal of Industrial Medicine 61, 751–761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wels, J (in press) Assessing the association between late career working time reduction and retirement plans. A cross-national comparison using the 2012 Labour Force Survey ad hoc module. Social Policy and Society.Google Scholar
Wheatley, D (2017) Employee satisfaction and use of flexible working arrangements. Work, Employment & Society 31, 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winship, C and Mare, RD (1984) Regression models with ordinal variables. American Sociological Review 49, 512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamada, T, Chen, C-C, Naddeo, JJ and Harris, JR (2015) Changing healthcare policies: implications for income, education, and health disparity. Frontiers in Public Health 3, August, 3–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed