How did European retirees respond to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Marco Bertoni; Martina Celidoni; Chiara Dal Bianco; Guglielmo Weber

doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109853

How did European retirees respond to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Econ Lett. 2021 Jun:203:109853. doi: 10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109853. Epub 2021 Apr 13.

Authors

Marco Bertoni^{1

2}, Martina Celidoni¹, Chiara Dal Bianco¹, Guglielmo Weber^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ University of Padova, Italy.
² IZA, Germany.
³ IFS, United Kingdom.

Abstract

We investigate the role of retirement on the adoption of preventive behaviours and on mental health during the first wave of the pandemic. We address the endogeneity of the timing of retirement using variation in early retirement and old-age pension eligibility. We find that those who retired earlier responded to the pandemic by limiting their mobility more, and by adopting stricter preventive behaviours in public. These limitations affected the mental health of singles in retirement.

Keywords: COVID-19; Retirement; SHARE.