Does Later Retirement Change Healthcare Consumption? Evidence From France

This paper examines the causal impact of retiring later on the healthcare consumption of the French elderly. While most previous work has focused on the impact of the switch from employment to retirement, I here analyze that of delayed retirement on the healthcare consumption of retirees. I exploit the 1993 French pension reform in a two-stage least squares approach to address the endogeneity of retirement. This reform led to a progressive increase in the claiming age for the 1934 to 1943 birth cohorts. I find that delaying the claiming age by three months significantly reduces the probability of having at least one Doctor visit per year by 0.815 percentage points for retirees aged between 67 and 75, and the annual number of Doctor visits by 1.14%. I find a similar drop in the consumption of prescription drugs but no significant effect on dental visits and hospital stays. These results underline the potential spillover effects between pension funds and health insurance.