title: The role of retiree health insurance in the early retirement of public sector employees.
abstract: Most government employees have access to retiree health coverage, which provides them with group health coverage even if they retire before Medicare eligibility. We study the impact of retiree health coverage on the labor supply of public sector workers between the ages of 55 and 64. We find that retiree health coverage raises the probability of stopping full time work by 4.3 percentage points (around 38 percent) over two years among public sector workers aged 55-59, and by 6.7 percentage points (around 26 percent) over two years among public sector workers aged 60-64. In the younger age group, retiree health insurance mostly seems to facilitate transitions to part-time work rather than full retirement. However, in the older age group, it increases the probability of stopping work entirely by 4.3 percentage points (around 22 percent).
authors.affiliation: Stanford University, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, 366 Galvez Street, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Electronic address: shoven@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: John B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Shoven
authors.affiliation: American Enterprise Institute, 1150 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA. Electronic address: sita.slavov@aei.org.
authors.forename: Sita Nataraj
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Slavov
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007348:Insurance, Health; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017150:Public Sector; D012179:Retirement / Q000191:economics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States
keywords: Public sector workers; Retiree health insurance; Retirement