Mental Health, Lifestyle and Retirement
Abstract
This chapter presents a mediation model that aims to disentangle the indirect from the direct effects of retirement on health, considering the mediating role of lifestyles. The model is applied to the risk of depression, and physical inactivity is assumed to potentially mediate the effect of retirement. The results indicate that there is a significant indirect effect via the mediator, albeit relatively small in comparison to the direct effect. The analysis highlights the importance of further exploring the influence of lifestyle factors in the relationship between retirement and health, in order to gain a better understanding of the potential pathways through which retirement impacts health.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Viola Angelini, Luca Stella and Coen van de Kraats for sharing material on pension eligibility in European countries. The authors also thank Emanuela Marrocu, Irene Mammi and Cristina Orso for suggestions and comments. The authors use data from SHARE Waves 1, 2, 4, 5 (DOIs: 10.6103/SHARE.w1.800, 10.6103/SHARE.w2.800, 10.6103/SHARE.w4.800, 10.6103/SHARE.w5.800). See Börsch-Supan et al. (2013) for methodological details. The SHARE data collection has been funded by the European Commission, DG RTD through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001–00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006–062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006–028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA N°211909, SHARE-LEAP: GA N°227822, SHARE M4: GA N°261982, DASISH: GA N°283646) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA N°676536, SHARE-COHESION: GA N°870628, SERISS: GA N°654221, SSHOC: GA N°823782, SHARECOVID19: GA N°101015924) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion through VS 2015/0195, VS 2016/0135, VS 2018/0285, VS 2019/0332 and VS 2020/0313. Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the US National Institute on Aging (U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30 AG12815, R21 AG025169, Y1AG-4553–01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA 04–064, HHSN271201300071C and RAG052527A) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org).
Citation
Balia, S. and Delugas, E. (2024), "Mental Health, Lifestyle and Retirement", Baltagi, B.H. and Moscone, F. (Ed.) Recent Developments in Health Econometrics (Contributions to Economic Analysis, Vol. 297), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 147-166. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0573-855520240000297008
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2024 Silvia Balia and Erica Delugas. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited