Does Retirement impact Happiness?

Retirement is an event that the majority of individual’s experience at the end of their working lives. Theories on retirement have shown conflicting impacts upon the retiree and their health status. The age of retirement is increasing throughout Europe, although the impact is not fully understood, especially in relation to happiness. The purpose of the present study was to understand the impact of retirement on an individual’s happiness and use happiness as a marker of health status. An Ordinary Least Squares regression was performed to determine the correlation of happiness of those who were retired and those who were not. This was followed by propensity score analyses, to match individuals on a range of characteristics determining the effect of retirement on happiness; and the strength of happiness as a marker for health to discern the effect retirement has on subjective health status.