Late-Life Working Participation and Mental Health Risk of Retirement-Aged Workers: How Much Impact Will There Be From Social Security System?

Abstract

Increasing retirement-aged workers are encouraged to stay in the labor market, as delayed retirement initiative is proposed. This study investigates the interplay of late-life working participation and social security on the mental health risk of retirement-aged workers. We applied data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS-2018), and the instrumental variables regression was conducted. Late-life working could alleviate depression, as did the beneficiary status of employment-based social health insurance and the pensionable phase of social pension participation. Besides, the role of late-life working in alleviating depression became more salient when late retirees were not insured by the employment-based social health insurance and still in the pension contribution phase. It is suggested that the current social security system in China has not been sufficiently well designed to protect the mental health of retirement-aged workers.