Incentives, Health, and Retirement: Evidence From a Finnish Pension Reform

This paper examines, using exogenous variation generated by a Finnish pension reform implemented in 2005, the interplay between health and financial incentives to postpone retirement. Based on detailed administrative data on individual health and retirement behavior, we focus on whether individual reactions to incentives vary according to health status and analyze whether individuals with ill health are also able to take advantage of the potential monetary benefits of delayed retirement created by the reform. We find that on average, individuals react to the financial incentives created by the reform as expected. This result holds for most of the health-related subgroups we analyze. However, those with a long period of sickness absence are less likely to respond to changes in the financial incentives to postpone retirement.