Elsevier

Labour Economics

Volume 76, June 2022, 102185
Labour Economics

Does retirement affect voluntary work provision? Evidence from Europe and the U.S.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102185Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • We study the causal effect of retirement on voluntary work in Europe and the U.S.

  • We find that retirement increases frequency of voluntary work.

  • These findings are remarkably consistent across countries.

  • The effects are stronger and more precisely estimated for men than for women.

Abstract

We examine whether retirement has a causal effect on the frequency of voluntary work provision in Europe and the U.S. We draw on data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and the Health Retirement Study for the period 2009–2017 and use eligibility ages for old age pensions in an instrumental variable estimation to address endogeneity. We find that retirement increases the frequency of voluntary work provision in all countries.

Keywords

Retirement
Voluntary work
Instrumental variables
Europe
United States

JEL codes

J22
J26

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