Mario Martinez-Jimenez

Economic crises are common, but their timing is uncertain. This paper examines whether the mental health and well-being effects of retirement change in the presence of major economic shocks. Using a range of causal empirical methodologies, with a particular focus on a fixed-effects instrumental variables approach, we analyse longitudinal data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) covering a representative sample of over 50-year-old individuals in England. We exploit regional variations in unemployment rates following the economic crisis in the short term (2004-2013) and the longer term (2004-2019). The findings show that moving into retirement while living in a region and year particularly hit by the crisis significantly decreases the probability of reporting a new depression or anxiety diagnosis by 4.9 percentage points, mostly driven by white-collar and men retirees. We show that financial security, healthy lifestyles, and the ability to early retirement help maintain the mental health benefits of retirement during economic crises. These findings suggest that policies enhancing financial security and resilience and promoting healthy lifestyle initiatives could bolster retirees' resilience and support healthy ageing.

This paper examines how early-life factors, including perinatal and neonatal conditions, shape children's communicative, physical, and socio-emotional skills by age three in the United Kingdom. These three domains are measured by adaptive behavior scales, widely used in the UK to assess early developmental delays and support clinical diagnosis. Using data on 4,335 children from the Understanding Society: Pregnancy and Early Childhood (PEACH) dataset between 2011 and 2023, we study how infant health at birth and breastfeeding are associated with the development of adaptive behavior skills at age 3. We rely on selection on observables models, including rich-controlled OLS, propensity score matching, and correlated random-effects models, drawing on detailed child, maternal, and household covariates measured from birth through age three. We find that poorer perinatal health is associated with slower physical development, whereas breastfeeding is linked to enhanced communication and socio-emotional development. Heterogeneity analyses indicate more pronounced perinatal-health effects for boys and non-firstborn children. We further implement a parametric mediation analysis and show that maternal engagement explains around 15% of the total benefits of breastfeeding for adaptive behavior, but does not positively mediate the relationship between adverse perinatal health and skill development. Our findings underscore the importance of public health policies that target support for children born in poorer perinatal health, helping to reduce early-life inequalities and promote more equitable child development.