The effect of the financial crisis on the retirement plans of older workers in England

•We investigate how wealth shocks influence retirement behaviour.•We exploit dramatic UK asset price changes in 2008-09 as a source of wealth shocks.•The median required delay to retirement to offset the wealth shock is 1.1 years.•We find no evidence that these shocks affected the retirement plans of older workers.

This letter revisits the question of how wealth shocks influence retirement behaviour, exploiting the dramatic changes in UK asset prices between 2008 and 2009 as a source of such shocks. We find no evidence that the wealth shocks arising from this recent financial crisis affected the retirement plans of older workers in England.