In the life cycle model of consumption and saving, homeownership is an important vehicle for horizontal redistribution. Households accumulate wealth in owner-occupied housing during working lives before benefiting from imputed rent streams in retirement. But in some countries housing wealth’s welfare role has broadened as owners increasingly use flexible mortgages to smooth consumption during working lives. One consequence is higher outstanding mortgages later in life, a burden exacerbated by high real house prices that compel home buyers to demand mortgages that are a growing multiple of their incomes. We investigate whether these developments are prompting longer working lives, an idea that is especially relevant in countries offering relatively low government pensions. Australia is one such country. We use the 2001–2017 panels of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to estimate hazard models of exits from the Australian labour force as workers approach pensionable age. We find that those with high outstanding mortgage debts are more likely to postpone retirement, as are those with relatively low amounts of private pension wealth. These results are stronger in urban housing markets, and especially among males.

在消费和储蓄的生命周期模型中，房屋所有权是横向再分配的重要工具。家庭在工作期间在自住住房中积累财富，然后在退休时从估算的租金流中受益。但在一些国家，随着业主越来越多地使用灵活的抵押贷款来平滑工作生活中的消费，住房财富的福利作用已经扩大。一个后果是晚年未偿还的抵押贷款增加，高实际房价加剧了这种负担，迫使购房者要求抵押贷款是他们收入的增长倍数。我们调查这些发展是否会延长工作寿命，这一想法在政府养老金相对较低的国家尤为重要。澳大利亚就是这样一个国家。我们使用 2001-2017 年的家庭面板，澳大利亚收入和劳动力动态调查，以估计随着工人接近领取养老金年龄而退出澳大利亚劳动力的风险模型。我们发现，那些未偿还抵押贷款债务较高的人更有可能推迟退休，那些私人养老金财富相对较少的人也是如此。这些结果在城市住房市场中更为明显，尤其是在男性中。