title: Is an early retirement offer good for your health? Quasi-experimental evidence from the army.
abstract: This paper studies empirically the consequences on health of an early retirement offer. To this end we use a targeted retirement offer to military officers 55 years of age or older. Before the offer was implemented, the normal retirement age in the Swedish defense was 60 years of age. Estimating the effect of the offer on individuals' health within the age range 56-70, we find support for a reduction in both mortality and in inpatient care as a consequence of the early retirement offer. Increasing the mandatory retirement age may thus not only have positive government income effects but also negative effects on increasing government health care expenditures.
authors.affiliation: Swedish Social Insurance Inspectorate (ISF) and UCLS, Sweden. Electronic address: daniel.hallberg@inspsf.se.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hallberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Uppsala University, UCLS, IFAU, ISF and IZA, Sweden. Electronic address: per.johansson@statistik.uu.se.
authors.forename: Per
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Johansson
authors.affiliation: Swedish Social Insurance Inspectorate (ISF) and Department of Medical Sciences, University of Uppsala, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Sweden. Electronic address: malin.josephson@inspsf.se.
authors.forename: Malin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Josephson
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002423:Cause of Death / Q000639:trends; D015331:Cohort Studies; D006304:Health Status; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D061213:Mortality, Premature / Q000639:trends; D010415:Pensions; D012179:Retirement / Q000191:economics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000639:trends; D013548:Sweden
keywords: Health; Inpatient care; Mortality; Pensions; Retirement