The age-dependent influence of self-reported health and job characteristics on retirement

OBJECTIVES: Social scientists and economists doubt the usefulness of self-reported health status as an indicator of overall health status. Self-reported health acts as a justification for retirement when this decision is in reality driven by other reasons. In this study, we looked at income, job satisfaction, and job status. METHODS: We introduce a survival model (Cox model) that simultaneously includes both health and job characteristics as independent variables. We also take the age-dependent character of these effects into account. RESULTS: An analysis of the European Community Household Panel data did not validate the justification bias with respect to these variables. The addition of job characteristics had no influence on the effect estimates of self-reported health. CONCLUSIONS: We found significant effects for self-reported health as well as for objective health measures. The addition of job characteristics did not contribute to the explanation of the effect of self-reported health falsifying the justification bias hypothesis.