oa Gezondheid en vervroegde uittrede in België

The impact of health status on early retirement in Belgium

The relation between health condition and early labor market exit plays an important role in the current welfare debate, both from an academic and a policy perspective. This article looks into the relationship between health status and other predictors of early exit on the bases of administrative panel data for Belgium. We model early exit using an event history analysis and a proportional hazard model. We study the impact of health controlling for company, family and individual characteristics. Our findings confirm that a chronic bad health condition is an important trigger for early exit for men and women. The higher exit rates among blue-collar workers in the private sector is to a large extent due to the health condition within these groups. Our results show that the company size, the sector of employment, the wage level and the absence of child load increase early exit. Furthermore partners do tune their early exit behavior.