Shattered Dreams: The Effects of Changing the Pension System Late in the Game

By Andries de Grip, M. Lindeboom, R. Montizaan. Social Science Research Network, 2009

139 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper assesses the impact of a dramatic reform of the Dutch pension system on mental health, savings behavior and retirement expectations of workers nearing retirement age. The reform means that public sector workers born on January 1, 1950 or later face a substantial reduction in their pension rights while workers born before this threshold date may still retire under the old, more generous rules. We employ a unique matched survey and administrative data set comprising male public sector workers born in 1949 and 1950 and find strong ex ante effects on mental health for workers who are affected by the reform. This effect increases as birth dates approach the threshold date. Furthermore, the effects differ in accordance with worker characteristics. Finally, we find that the response of those affected by the reform is to work longer and to save more.1.

Subfields: Accounting, Demography, Economics and Econometrics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/56fab599a37b1a1a73ba722d841fbf638083f2c0

Citations in the corpus

• Wealth Shocks and Health Outcomes: Evidence from Stock Market Fluctuations (2016, unknown): “(4)The responsiveness of elderly mental health to income related shocks has also been documented by Grip et al. (2009).”