Retirement and health and consumption related behaviours
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Date
2026-09-14
Authors
Κοψιδάς, Νικόλαος
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Abstract
A person throughout their lifetime experiences several periods of major lifestyle changes. The most common ones are the introduction of a child to school, then exiting the education system in order to attempt to transition into the labour force before finally retiring after, usually, four decades of work. Considering that a person has spent majority of their life in the labour force, working daily, retiring is a massive change in their life. New found free time in their life available to be filled however they wish and receiving a pension instead of a wage or any other income from working are the most notable changes. Although retirement can have an impact on multiple areas of a person's life, as a result a lot of research is done on the subject of retirement. The purpose of this analysis is to identify how retirement shapes the consumption decisions and the mental health of a person. Data is used from the SHARE organization data base to gather information on the retirement status as well as other characteristics of European citizens. Considering that every person expects to retire at some time in the future while pension replacement rates are on average around 62% in OECD countries, and the fact that loneliness prevails at higher rates among older adults compared to younger ages, someone can get motivated to dive deeper into understanding the impact of retirement on different aspects people's life. These are a few of the reasons that this analysis takes place. Previous research is done on both subjects, yet circumstances change and results in different areas and different studies do not allow for clear conclusions on what the real impact of retirement can be on both consumption and mental health, while the multitude of other determining factors of both matters enhances the uncertainty.
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Keywords
Retirement, Consumption, Mental health