Big five personality traits and retirement decisions

We estimate the effect of the Big Five personality traits on the retirement decisions of individuals aged between 50 and 80 years in fourteen European countries, using wave 7 from the SHARE data. We investigate the probability of retirement and a measure of the distance between actual retirement and ordinary retirement age. Overall, we find that personality affects retirement decisions, and the effects are similar across gender. Openness to experience, conscientiousness and extraversion are generally associated with a delay in retirement decisions, whereas neuroticism anticipates the exit from the labour market.