Online After Lunch Taskforce Meeting: How will disabled workers respond to a higher retirement age?
Starting in November, Netspar will organize online After Lunch Taskforce Meetings for partners and employees of partners every week on Tuesdays or Thursdays, in which researchers outline their latest retirement research and then receive feedback and answer questions. It is just another way we bring science, academics, and professional practice closer together.
Tunga Kantarcı (Tilburg University) presented the research he conducts with Jim Been (University Leiden) and Arthur van Soest (Tilburg University) during the Online After Lunch Taskforce Meeting on 19 November 2020. This was an English-speaking event.
In this meeting you heard more about: How will disabled workers respond to a higher retirement age?
After this meeting you had input that on the fact that a higher retirement age does not imply prolonged periods of labor participation where disabled people fully utilize their remaining work capacity.
A higher statutory retirement age implies more disability benefit claims since the population of older workers with a work-limiting health problem is larger. Moreover, since disability benefit claims are paid until the statutory retirement age, beneficiaries claim benefits for longer periods of time. We show that an additional factor contributing to the increasing burden of disability benefit costs is the decreasing remaining work capacity of individuals with work-limiting health problems due to a higher statutory retirement age. That is, a higher statutory retirement age does not imply prolonged periods of labor market participation where individuals on disability benefits fully utilize their remaining work capacity. The ability to respond to work incentives decreases with age.