Biographies of the Take-up of Health Care Services Prior to Claiming Invalidity Pensions and Pensions for Occupational Invalidity

The paper analyses the link between the use of health care services and illness-caused termination of gainful employment. Generally, dependently employed persons draw on health care services ever more frequently when they get older: there is a rise in both the frequency of visits to the doctor and the frequency and quantity of drugs prescribed and stays in hospital. An analysis of comparison groups arrives at significant differences: persons who first drew an illness-based pension in 2009 consumed a substantially above-average amount of medicinal drugs, consulted doctors more frequently and had more spells in hospital already five years before retiring.