Back to Work: Trends in Post-Retirement Employment
[July 2004 - Michigan Retirement Research Center] Retirement is often modeled as an absorbing state. But in fact, many people return to paid work after they retire - that is, they unretire. Despite an extensive literature on retirement behavior, little is known about unretirement. An individual might go back to work out of economic necessity or for non-pecuniary reasons. For example, people might return to work in order to maintain consumption if they suffer financial shocks or if they failed to plan well. Others might return to work simply because they do not enjoy retirement as much as they expected. From the standpoint of policy interest, whether unretirement is beneficial or detrimental for retirees depends on why people go back to work. In this project, I propose to establish a basic understanding of post-retirement labor supply. I will use the HRS to evaluate how common unretirement is and explore what specific features of the household economic environment are correlated with unretirement. In addition, I will document trends over time using successive panels of the SIPP. ...

Older Workers: Employment and Retirement Trends
[2004 - WHARTON SCHOOL PENSION RESEARCH COUNCIL] The number of people retiring each year affects the size of the labor force, which has a direct impact on the economy's capacity to produce goods and services. Other things equal, fewer retirements in any given year would result in a greater supply of experienced workers available to employers and fewer people relying on savings, pensions, and social security as their main sources of income. Consequently, changes in the age profile of the population or the average age at which people retire have implications for both national income and the size and composition of the federal budget. This chapter describes the aging of the US population and summarizing historical data older workers' labor force participation. Next, we turn to information on older persons' employment and receipt of pension income, which are discussed in the context information on the proportion of workers who claim retired-worker benefits before the full retirement age (65 years and 4 months for people who reach age 65 in 2004). A final section discusses recent proposals to promote phased retirement through amendments to sections of the Internal Revenue Code that govern the taxation of pension income. ...