Effects of working part-time and full-time on physical and mental health in old age

An increasing number of studies are analyzing the effect of retirement on health. When analyzing the effect of retirement against work activity, these studies do not distinguish between part-time and full-time work activity. We study how the amount of work hours affects the health conditions in old age. To avoid the potential bias that deteriorating health can cause employees to work fewer hours, retirement eligibility ages are used as instruments for part-time or full-time work decisions. We find that self-perceived health, self-rated memory and body mass index respond to working part-time much more than they respond to working full-time. This suggests that the effect of the number of hours worked on health in old age is not linear.