Is retirement bliss? Assessing the impact of retirement on subjective well-being in Russia

preprint OA: closed
Full text JSON View at publisher

Abstract

Abstract Retirement is a major life event affecting individuals’ time use, economic position, and social roles. Using data from the World Health Organization’s Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (2007-2010), we examine the causal impact of retirement on subjective well-being in Russia. Exploiting sharp eligibility thresholds for old-age pensions, we compare the effects of retirement on evaluative and emotional dimensions of well-being for women and men. We find that retirement has no significant effect on evaluative well-being, while it leads to substantial improvements in emotional well-being, particularly among men. To shed light on the mechanisms underlying these patterns, we combine a control function approach with detailed time-use data and decompose changes in experienced well-being into time reallocation (“time composition”) effects and changes in activity-specific affect. Our results show that emotional gains from retirement are largely driven by shifts away from paid work toward activities associated with more positive affect, with markedly different patterns for men and women. Our study provides nuanced insights into the gender-specific effects of retirement on subjective well-being and provides policy-relevant insights for debates on increasing statutory retirement ages. JEL-Code : I310 ; J260 ; J140 ; J160
Full text 17,336 characters · extracted from preprint-html · click to expand
Is retirement bliss? Assessing the impact of retirement on subjective well-being in Russia | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Is retirement bliss? Assessing the impact of retirement on subjective well-being in Russia Clémence Kieny, Jürgen Maurer This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8515696/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Retirement is a major life event affecting individuals’ time use, economic position, and social roles. Using data from the World Health Organization’s Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (2007-2010), we examine the causal impact of retirement on subjective well-being in Russia. Exploiting sharp eligibility thresholds for old-age pensions, we compare the effects of retirement on evaluative and emotional dimensions of well-being for women and men. We find that retirement has no significant effect on evaluative well-being, while it leads to substantial improvements in emotional well-being, particularly among men. To shed light on the mechanisms underlying these patterns, we combine a control function approach with detailed time-use data and decompose changes in experienced well-being into time reallocation (“time composition”) effects and changes in activity-specific affect. Our results show that emotional gains from retirement are largely driven by shifts away from paid work toward activities associated with more positive affect, with markedly different patterns for men and women. Our study provides nuanced insights into the gender-specific effects of retirement on subjective well-being and provides policy-relevant insights for debates on increasing statutory retirement ages. JEL-Code : I310 ; J260 ; J140 ; J160 Subjective Well-being Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) Retirement Gender Russia Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files SupplementaryMaterial.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8515696","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":573342577,"identity":"751d7188-a8db-4c7a-b369-9dfa855656d1","order_by":0,"name":"Clémence Kieny","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABGElEQVRIie2PMUvDUBDHLwSS5cJbHwTrV6gEshjyWV4IxLmLqymB6+Te4pfIpm6Rh7hIu7bEpQTcpSBKLfqqbVyS0FHw/Ybj3Z/7cfcANJq/iL1/oJGqGgCY+4S3KPXAj5LsEnGQ8l3lrutQWGbe5y83YQ9QDqsBzaJr216uBm8BsKu0UeHSShaTx9gDZ5h5Eyqj2ww9dywS4E9Fo9I30S8dKqKUGeQ6SsklgotCQp+LFoW9lhsqLpQyWjs0VYpdrVF8diholQYVQh1G5nZdLsFXW4pWRf3FX1xSfEJ4l7k4jT11mH+KSYx83qywUfY8f6fwmOHZcoXn4VE+e6hKDMIeGzcrNda2GNZvgN3zNR8Hzmk0Gs2/4gsbEVhQJA/VWgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Centre universitaire de médecine générale et santé publique, Lausanne","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Clémence","middleName":"","lastName":"Kieny","suffix":""},{"id":573342578,"identity":"a694ca49-d34a-4014-be0b-386da48b3934","order_by":1,"name":"Jürgen Maurer","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Lausanne","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jürgen","middleName":"","lastName":"Maurer","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-01-04 23:53:04","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8515696/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8515696/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":100366210,"identity":"87450dbf-7812-4c83-8df1-8d4334e9ce5d","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:56:06","extension":"docx","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":2429930,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"JHSFinalanon.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/bc2ade88d8dd61a076639e9d.docx"},{"id":100117947,"identity":"10623a06-4eb9-43f9-b6d3-7d869cd4947b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-13 08:15:06","extension":"json","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":4207,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"3382481bbc224a95af3ed46b733ad166.json","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/e0614f25a803093fe11e42cb.json"},{"id":100117950,"identity":"d42e27ee-915e-47e9-9bfd-8f20199d803d","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-13 08:15:06","extension":"docx","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":546157,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"SupplementaryMaterial.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/cb2e82023440337e2fd9c469.docx"},{"id":100366113,"identity":"97d5228e-9bda-4157-bf52-e3541ce11257","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:55:58","extension":"xml","order_by":3,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":206283,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"3382481bbc224a95af3ed46b733ad1661enriched.xml","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/58b8f0464176e02fe1373c55.xml"},{"id":100365851,"identity":"a800cc5b-e1e6-491a-9bd8-d713367cd0d0","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:55:42","extension":"emf","order_by":4,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":1715088,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"floatimage1.emf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/e9d575151b1f49d25cad8567.emf"},{"id":100117959,"identity":"02cfac1a-1d11-47b2-8ab1-99f8f94c733a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-13 08:15:06","extension":"emf","order_by":5,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":5117064,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"floatimage2.emf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/5062b56d0e8ff981cb555842.emf"},{"id":100366335,"identity":"aeef4438-544b-4a21-ae65-cc5c3fa05c28","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:56:14","extension":"emf","order_by":6,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":5434556,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"floatimage3.emf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/f5ed594e342d4a7de2d7e10b.emf"},{"id":100366081,"identity":"0cc3e9e8-8631-4951-bdcb-9dba359e55c5","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:55:55","extension":"jpeg","order_by":7,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":613931,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"floatimage4.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/7d5723e09dd0219d18738180.jpeg"},{"id":100366938,"identity":"575e5aa4-e246-4f15-a481-ca51575c92b7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:56:40","extension":"jpeg","order_by":8,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":34126,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"groupimage1.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/7057fd6c83e937a830088681.jpeg"},{"id":100365545,"identity":"0a31247b-6ae5-4846-a92a-045a1934619e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:55:21","extension":"png","order_by":9,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":4716,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Onlinefloatimage1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/922e603b70289a91bdca9467.png"},{"id":100365841,"identity":"82c5c52c-21d0-4c9c-ba91-de636aa979f4","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:55:41","extension":"png","order_by":10,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":6914,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Onlinefloatimage2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/4fc9c05ba3f9bd84e08938b4.png"},{"id":100365615,"identity":"d0d5a347-d877-4eaa-b370-01f945ee94b9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:55:26","extension":"png","order_by":11,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":7912,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Onlinefloatimage3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/0eed45e496f5d72396292b67.png"},{"id":100365322,"identity":"60b61847-b804-46b0-9800-bfee96636c2a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:55:02","extension":"png","order_by":12,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":90824,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Onlinefloatimage4.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/97c5c7da5594e70f56fc764e.png"},{"id":100365616,"identity":"68fd3c4d-13a7-49aa-a8aa-ec5e5b3202a6","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-16 07:55:26","extension":"png","order_by":13,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":6003,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Onlinegroupimage1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/d9d67528a28198887870cc41.png"},{"id":100117962,"identity":"d6def5d7-d8c9-45cf-9eb7-a3553cc39e83","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-13 08:15:06","extension":"xml","order_by":14,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":202193,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"3382481bbc224a95af3ed46b733ad1661structuring.xml","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/56f692acfdf3145d4559d052.xml"},{"id":100117963,"identity":"063a7720-aff0-424a-9da3-00709d29ad5c","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-13 08:15:06","extension":"html","order_by":15,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":226553,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"earlyproof.html","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/84e1445c540124e4a624ec05.html"},{"id":104782519,"identity":"cf02514c-8d21-41d3-b170-8fb436424bf2","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-17 07:57:27","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1273591,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"JHSFinalanon.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1_covered_e78565c4-c53b-4957-a8bd-5c00a417c543.pdf"},{"id":100117948,"identity":"7bb7e5de-85ae-486e-bd94-7d85e45ac487","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-13 08:15:06","extension":"docx","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":546157,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"SupplementaryMaterial.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8515696/v1/7b0edfbca475959638d9a95c.docx"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Is retirement bliss? Assessing the impact of retirement on subjective well-being in Russia","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Subjective Well-being, Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), Retirement, Gender, Russia","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8515696/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8515696/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eRetirement is a major life event affecting individuals’ time use, economic position, and social roles. Using data from the World Health Organization’s Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (2007-2010), we examine the causal impact of retirement on subjective well-being in Russia. Exploiting sharp eligibility thresholds for old-age pensions, we compare the effects of retirement on evaluative and emotional dimensions of well-being for women and men. We find that retirement has no significant effect on evaluative well-being, while it leads to substantial improvements in emotional well-being, particularly among men. To shed light on the mechanisms underlying these patterns, we combine a control function approach with detailed time-use data and decompose changes in experienced well-being into time reallocation (“time composition”) effects and changes in activity-specific affect. Our results show that emotional gains from retirement are largely driven by shifts away from paid work toward activities associated with more positive affect, with markedly different patterns for men and women. Our study provides nuanced insights into the gender-specific effects of retirement on subjective well-being and provides policy-relevant insights for debates on increasing statutory retirement ages.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJEL-Code\u003c/strong\u003e: I310 ; J260 ; J140 ; J160\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Is retirement bliss? Assessing the impact of retirement on subjective well-being in Russia","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-01-13 08:15:01","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8515696/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"b7e0d698-57f1-4adb-bcb0-14ad19d0d8e2","owner":[],"postedDate":"January 13th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-03-15T02:39:11+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-01-13 08:15:01","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8515696","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8515696","identity":"rs-8515696","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}

Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below. Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy (via DOI) is the canonical version.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Ask this paper AI returns verbatim quotes from the full text · source: preprint-html

Answers must be backed by verbatim quotes from this paper's full text. Hallucinated quotes are dropped automatically; if no verbatim passage answers the question, we say so. How this works

Citation neighborhood (no data yet)

We don't have any in-corpus citations linked to this paper yet. This is a recent paper (2026) — citers typically take a year or two to land, and the OpenAlex reference graph may still be filling in.

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-05-20T01:45:00.602351+00:00