Residential Mobility and Active Aging Trajectories Around Retirement: A Propensity Score-Matched Event-Aligned...

This study examined whether residential relocation around retirement was associated with changes in active aging among older adults in South Korea. We used nationally representative panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging from 2014 to 2022. A study-specific active aging score was constructed from three domains: health, participation, and security. Residential relocation was defined as moving within 3 years before or after retirement. Propensity score matching with up to five non-mover controls per mover was used to improve baseline comparability between movers and non-movers. The matched cohort included 740 retirees, comprising 154 movers and 586 non-movers, and contributed 2717 person-wave observations. We then applied event-aligned generalized estimating equation models with T-1 as the pre-retirement reference wave. Overall active aging scores were significantly lower at retirement and during the post-retirement waves than at T-1. However, relocation was not significantly associated with the pre-retirement active aging score, and none of the relocation-by-event-time interaction terms were statistically significant. In domain-specific analyses, participation scores declined substantially after retirement, whereas security scores increased at later post-retirement waves. Movers had lower baseline health-domain scores than non-movers, but relocation was not associated with differential post-retirement changes in any domain. Sensitivity analyses excluding homeownership from the security domain yielded similar results. These findings suggest that active aging declined after retirement, particularly through reduced participation, but relocation experience during the retirement transition was not associated with distinct active aging trajectories. Because relocation could occur either before or after retirement within the predefined transition window, the findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causal effects of moving.