Taking Back Control? Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Retirement on Locus of Control

No 16704, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use nationally representative panel data from Australia to consider the impact of retirement on individual locus of control, a socio-emotional skill that has substantial explanatory power for a broad range of life outcomes. We establish causality via cohort-specific eligibility age for the Australian Age Pension. We show that retirement leads to increased internal locus of control. This greater sense of internal control can explain around one-third and one-fifth of the positive effects of retirement on health and subjective well-being, respectively. The impact of retirement on control beliefs varies along the distribution of locus of control, with the positive influence being most pronounced for men with a relatively high sense of internal control and for women with a relatively high sense of external control. Last, we provide evidence that locus of control is much more malleable at retirement than the other socio-emotional skills of the Big-Five personality traits, risk and time preferences, and trust.

Keywords: retirement; locus of control; socio-emotional skills; public pension (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H55 J24 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2023-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-hea, nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Economic Journal, 2024, 134, 1465–1493

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16704.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Taking Back Control? Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Retirement on Locus of Control (2024)
Working Paper: Taking Back Control? Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Retirement on Locus of Control (2024)
Working Paper: Taking Back Control? Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Retirement on Locus of Control (2024)
Working Paper: Taking Back Control? Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Retirement on Locus of Control (2023)
Working Paper: Taking Back Control? Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Retirement on Locus of Control (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16704

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().