Retirement

Can survey participation alter household saving behaviour?

The old age provisions of the Medicaid program were designed to insure retirees against medical expenses. We estimate a structural model of savings and medical spending and use it to compute the distribution of lifetime Medicaid transfers and Medicaid valuations across currently single retirees.

More work is needed to distinguish precautionary saving motives from other motives, such as the desire to leave bequests. In this paper, progress toward disentangling these motivations has been made by matching other features of the data, such as public and private insurance choices.

We examine the impact of increasing the early retirement age (ERA) for women in a context where the financial incentive to retire at the ERA is very limited.

We estimate the changing value of workplace pensions in the UK and incorporate their value into an estimate of the public sector pay differential.

In the context of the current policy emphasis on extending working lives, we investigate whether the relationship between participation in paid work, other formal, and informal activities among people aged 50-69 is complementary or competitive. We also investigate differences in associations between countries using comparable longitudinal data from Denmark, France, Italy, and England. We find positive associations between informal and formal engagement in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Paid work was negatively associated with formal and informal engagement, and respondents who stopped working were more likely to be engaged in formal (Denmark and France) and informal activities (England and Italy) at follow-up than respondents who continued working. However, the strongest predictor of formal and informal engagement at follow-up was baseline engagement. In the context of policy aims to extend working lives and broaden older people's participation in other productive activities, new balances between work and other forms of engagement are still to be found.

Private pension saving is a key component of retirement saving in the UK. The most recent data available shows that four-tenths of private household wealth is held in private pensions. Among those aged 55 to 64 nearly 73 percent had accumulated some private pension rights, with the median holding among those with some pension rights being £149,300 (Office for National Statistics 2015). This is partly explained by the fact that holding savings in pensions is, on average, tax favoured relative to other saving vehicles. The fact that large amounts are placed in private pensions also makes it important that the tax treatment of such savings is well-designed.

We use comparable data from the US and England to examine similarities and differences in the level and trajectories of assets among households aged 70 and over.

OBJECTIVES: Retirement constitutes a major life transition that poses significant challenges to health, with many retirees experiencing a precipitous decline in health status following retirement. We examine the extent to which membership in social groups following retirement determines quality of life and mortality.

Population ageing in Western countries has made delayed retirement and extended working life a policy priority in recent years. Retirement timing has been linked to individual factors such as health and wealth, but less is known about the role of the psychosocial work environment. This paper drew upon longitudinal data on 3462 workers aged 50-69 from five waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Regression models were used to assess the association of working conditions with preferred timing of retirement and actual work exit. Adjusting for a range of covariates, job demands (aspects of the job requiring sustained physical or psychological effort) were associated with preferences for earlier retirement (by 0.18 years; 95 % C.I. 0.06, 0.31). Decision authority was associated with preferences for later retirement (by 0.38 years; 95 % C.I. 0.23, 0.53) and reduced odds of work exit (OR = 0.93; 95 % C.I. 0.88, 0.97). Low recognition at work was associated with increased odds of work exit (OR = 1.23; 95 % C.I. 1.10, 1.43). There was little evidence of any interactive relationship between demands and resources. Efforts to extend working life should address issues relating to the immediate psychosocial work environment. Providing older workers with increased sense of control, and ensuring contributions are adequately recognised, may delay retirement intentions and the timing of labour market exit.

The influence of early life, accumulation and social mobility on wellbeing in later life in the U.S. and England is investigated. Using cross-sectional data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we estimate multivariate regressions of hedonic and eudemonic measures of wellbeing on these life course mechanisms, controlling for age, gender, ethnic background, partnership status, health and wealth. On the level of the life course mechanisms, there is mixed evidence regarding the critical impact of early life, strong evidence for an association between accumulation and eudemonic wellbeing and a moderate negative effect of downward social mobility. While the relation between hedonic wellbeing and life course mechanisms is unclear or in a different direction than anticipated, eudemonic wellbeing is clearly related to accumulation and mobility in both countries and to early life in the U.S. On the societal level, the major observation is that the life course has a larger influence in the U.S. than in England.

The UK has enacted a number of reforms to the structure of disability benefits, including the introduction of Incapacity Benefit in 1995 and the replacement of Incapacity Benefit with Employment and Support Allowance from 2008. The authors bring together administrative and survey data over the period and highlight key differences in receipt of disability benefits by age, sex and health.

This report summary is drawn from IFS research that was carried out as part of a programme of work examining the outlook for poverty and living standards in older age.

The UK has enacted a number of reforms to the structure of disability benefits, including the introduction of Incapacity Benefit in 1995 and the replacement of Incapacity Benefit with Employment and Support Allowance from 2008. The authors bring together administrative and survey data over the period and highlight key differences in receipt of disability benefits by age, sex and health.