title: Pappa Ante Portas: The effect of the husband's retirement on the wife's mental health in Japan.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics and Management "Marco Fanno", University of Padova, via del Santo 33, 35123 Padova, Italy. Electronic address: marco.bertoni@unipd.it.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bertoni
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics and Management "Marco Fanno", University of Padova, via del Santo 33, 35123 Padova, Italy; IZA (Institute of Labour Economics), Bonn, Germany. Electronic address: giorgio.brunello@unipd.it.
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Brunello
mesh_terms: D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D012179:Retirement / Q000523:psychology*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D018454:Spouses / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications*; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Couples; Japan; Mental health; Pension reforms; Retirement; Stress