Retirement Spillover Effects on Spousal Health in Urban China

This paper empirically studies the causal effect of retirement on spouses’ subjective health for the elderly in urban China. We find that women’s retirement positively affects their husbands, while husbands’ retirement tends to affect wives negatively. The difference in post-retirement healthy (and unhealthy) behaviors and emotions between men and women can explain gender asymmetry. Men tend to have a negative state of mind and unhealthy habits and behaviors more than women, which results in the negative spillover effect. We also estimate the marginal threshold treatment effect (MTTE), showing that a small delay of statutory retirement age is beneficial for improving overall subjective health, yet the conclusion would actually be the opposite if the spillover effect were to be ignored. These results provide useful references for the current discussion on retirement policy reform in China.