Saving Regret and Procrastination.

In countries, where a substantial proportion of retirement income rests on savings, there is much concern that a sizeable fraction of the population reaches retirement with insufficient financial resources. We define saving regret as the wish in hindsight to have saved more earlier in life. We measured saving regret and possible determinants in a survey of U.S. households in which respondents were aged 60-79. We find high levels of saving regret, affirmed by some 58%. Saving regret exhibits significant and plausible correlations with personal characteristics and wealth: Married, older, healthier and wealthier respondents are less likely to report saving regret, suggesting the measure's validity. We find only weak evidence for correlations between saving regret and measures of procrastination: persons with traits associated with procrastination express saving regret about as often as those without those traits.

Early Determinants of Work Disability in an International Perspective.

This study explores the interrelated roles of health and welfare state policies in the decision to take up disability insurance (DI) benefits due to work disability (WD), defined as the (partial) inability to engage in gainful employment as a result of physical or mental illness. We exploit the large international variation of health, self-reported WD, and the uptake of DI benefits in the United States and Europe using a harmonized data set with life history information assembled from SHARE, ELSA, and HRS. We find that the mismatch between WD and DI benefit receipt varies greatly across countries. Objective health explains a substantial share of the within-country variation in DI, but this is not the case for the variation across countries. Rather, most of the variation between countries and the mismatches are explained by differences in DI policies.

Double Trouble: The Burden of Child-rearing and Working on Maternal Mortality.

We document increased old-age mortality rates among Swedish mothers of twins compared with mothers of singletons, using administrative data on mortality for 1990-2010. We argue that twins are an unplanned shock to fertility in the cohorts of older women considered. Deaths due to lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and heart attacks-all of which are associated with stress during the life course-are significantly increased. Stratifying the sample by education and pension income shows the highest increase in mortality rates among highly educated mothers and those with above-median pension income. These results are consistent with the existence of a double burden on mothers' health resulting from simultaneously child-rearing and working.

Long-term health consequences of recessions during working years.

Economic crises may have severe consequences for population health. We investigate the long-term effects of macroeconomic crises experienced during prime working age (20-50) on health outcomes later in life using SHARE data (Survey of Health Aging and Retirement in Europe) from eleven European countries. Analyses are based on the first two waves of SHARE data collected in 2004 and 2006 (N = 22,886) and retrospective life history data from SHARELIFE collected in 2008 (N = 13,732). Experiencing a severe crisis in which GDP dropped by at least 1% significantly reduces health later in life. Specifically, respondents hit by such a shock rate their subjective health as worse, are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases and mobility limitations, and have lower grip strength. The effects are twice as large among low-educated respondents. A deeper analysis of critical periods in life reveals that respondents' health is more affected by crises experienced later in the career (between age 41 and 50). The labor market patterns show that these people drop out of the labor force. While men retire early, women are more likely to become home makers. In line with the literature on the negative consequences of retirement on health, this suggests that early retirement in times of economic crises might be detrimental to health.