This paper uses the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to investigate the role of pension and social security institutions in shaping the European patterns of work and retirement. The key novelty of our paper is a careful account of the health status of the respondents. We provide new evidence on the extent of health-adjusted “unused capacity” in the labour force, on the institutional determinants of the pathways to retirement, and on the relationship between actual health status and disability-benefit recipiency. We find that institutional differences between countries explain much of the cross-national differences in work and retirement, while differences in health and demographics play only a minor role.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event with wide-ranging implications. Given that households are at the center of major changes affecting the entire world, the Review of Economics of the Household is publishing a series of issues on COVID-19 and the economics of the household. Here we review eight articles documenting the enormous costs of the COVID containment policies, in particular the school closures that ensued. Individuals paid a heavy cost in terms of disruption in their attachment to the labor force. Children could not go to school and parents were forced to provide extra childcare and spend significant amounts of time helping children continue to learn, while possibly working from home. Domestic violence became more common. These changes have often been traumatic, to the detriment of the well-being and mental health of large numbers of people. Women have paid a higher price than men, as many of the studies demonstrate. Our conclusion calls for policy-makers to prepare for the post-traumatic period: many households will need help.

This paper uses the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to investigate the role of pension and social security institutions in shaping the European patterns of work and retirement. We provide evidence on the extent of "unused capacity" in labor force, on pathways to retirement and on the relationship between actual health status and disability take up. We find that institutional differences between countries explain much of the cross-national differences in work and retirement, while differences in health and demographics play only a minor role.

9 Older adults living with cognitive and mobility-related limitations: social deprivation and forms of care received 103 VI Contents Hannes Kröger and Rasmus Hoffmann 10 Who can realise their retirement plans? Poor health and employment crises as factors of exclusion 115 Stefan Listl and Hendrik Jürges 11 Social inequalities in oral health -towards targeted health policy interventions 127 Fabio Franzese 12 Slipping into poverty: effects on mental and physical health 139 Kimberly J. Stoeckel and Howard Litwin 13 Social cohesiveness and neighbourhood environmental deprivation: how are they related to life satisfaction in late life? 149 Part III Inclusion and social cohesiveness Edited by Howard Litwin Christian Deindl and Martina Brandt 14 Social exclusion and support between generations 161 Sharon Shiovitz-Ezra 15 Loneliness in Europe: do perceived neighbourhood characteristics matter? 169

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