Abstract: Based on the data of China Health and Pension Tracking Survey and the breakpoint regression design, this paper conducts a study of the impact of retirement shock on household consumption in China. The results show that retirement can significantly reduce household non-durable goods consumption by 31.2%. After removing work-related consumption, home food consumption and expenditures on leisure, culture, education and entertainment, the other non-durable goods consumption has not decreased significantly. The retirement shock leads to a significant change on the household consumption structure. It makes a significant increase in health care spending, and a significant increase in the proportion of non-basic consumption, which helps to optimize the consumption structure. The results of further research indicate that retirement shock has significant heterogeneous effects on households with different levels of consumption and different consumption structures. The impact of retirement shock on the families at the left end of the distribution of health care consumption and the families at the right end of the distribution of non-basic consumption is even more significant. Therefore, it is recommended to formulate a more robust social security system, promote the upgrading of the consumption structure of the elderly, and meet the multi-level material and cultural consumption needs of the elderly.

Key words: retirement shock, household consumption, aging, breakpoint regression design