Calendrier du 27 avril 2023
brown bag Travail et Économie Publique
Du 27/04/2023 de 12:30 à 13:30
PSE- 48 boulevard Jourdan, 74014 Paris, salle R1-09
BASSOLI Elena (PSE)
Women's retirement behavior and pension wealth: the unintended effect of a recent pension reform
Western countries' governments have recently raised the requirements for retirement; however, how older workers respond to new rules is still an important issue and even more for women, who usually experience discontinuous careers and have lower labour market attachment.
This paper assesses the effect of a pension reform implemented in Italy in 2011, which unexpectedly and substantially increased the statutory retirement age (SRA), on women's retirement behaviour and wealth. The analysis uses administrative data from the National Social Security Institute and is based on a Regression Discontinuity (RD) and a Regression Discontinuity Differences-in-Differences (RD-DD) design. Identification exploits the facts that (i) women with a number of years of contributions just above specific thresholds are eligible for old age retirement or early retirement; (ii) women born in 1952 are the first cohort affected by the SRA increase, while women born in 1951 are unaffected. The results indicate that women affected by the pension reform, for whom SRA increased from age 60 to age 64 unexpectedly, are more likely to anticipate retirement when they have more than 35 years of contribution. As this option entails a penalization in the annuity, we also assess the reform's effect on the women's pension amount. The results (though preliminary) indicate that there is a reduction in the annuity, but the evidence is not statistically significant.