The impact of retirement on mental health

After 2020, with Chinese baby boomers growing old, more and more working people will step into retirement. What kind of influence retirement behaviour will have on the mental health of the older adults and whether the existing findings of retirement on the mental health of the older adults are applicable to China's current conditions? The answers are related to the improvement of the well being of older adults and future policy orientation. Based on the China Family Tracking Survey data in 2016 and 2018, the paper employed the Ordinary Least Squares, Two Stage Least Squares, and Propensity Score Matching methods to investigate the effect of retirement on the mental health of older adults in China. Results show that retirement can significantly reduce the depression and has a positive impact on the their mental health, and no chronic diseases, poor economic status and shorter education years are conducive to improve mental health of the elderly. Further, the mechanisms differ between the sexes that while exercise is a positive mediator for both sexes, reading and family dinners are positive mediators for men but not for women.