Time to check up: Retirement and cancer screening in Australia

Cancer screening is central to early detection and healthy ageing, yet evidence on how major life transitions shape screening uptake remains limited. Using four waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey covering 2009, 2013, 2017, and 2021, with 18,875 person-wave observations from 8343 individuals aged 50-75, we estimate the causal effect of retirement on cancer screening using an instrumental-variable design that exploits discontinuities in Age Pension eligibility. Retirement significantly increases participation in organised cancer screening, with the clearest effects appearing in low-friction, invitation-based programmes. The strongest and most robust increases are observed for bowel cancer screening, and among women we also find positive effects for breast screening. By contrast, we find little evidence of comparable changes in broader health care use or in tests that rely more heavily on patient or provider initiative. This pattern points to the importance of programme architecture: retirement matters most where screening is actively prompted, easy to access, and simple to complete. These findings identify retirement as an important phase for engagement with organised screening and underscore the role of institutional design in translating additional time into preventive action in ageing societies.