How do Older Workers use Nontraditional Jobs?

Alicia Munnell, Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher and Abigail N. Walters

No 26379, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Working consistently through one’s fifties and early sixties is key to attaining retirement security. However, workers also need access to retirement plans – so they can continue to accumulate resources – and health insurance – so they can avoid withdrawing assets in the event of a health shock. Yet, despite the fact that a large literature focuses on nontraditional jobs that often lack these benefits, it is unclear how older workers use these jobs and what the consequences are. This paper uses the Health and Retirement Study to identify nontraditional jobs and relies on sequence analysis to explore how workers ages 50-62 use them. The results suggest that the majority of nontraditional jobs are used by workers consistently, and that fewer workers use these jobs briefly or as a bridge to retirement. In the end, workers consistently in nontraditional jobs end up with less retirement income and are also worse off by a more holistic measure of well-being – the incidence of depression. Given this situation, expanding benefits to workers in non-traditional jobs could increase their well-being in retirement.

JEL-codes: J26 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-ias and nep-lma
Note: AG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published as How Do Older Workers Use Nontraditional Jobs? , Alicia Munnell, Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher, Abigail N. Walters. in Incentives and Limitations of Employment Policies on Retirement Transitions: Comparisons of Public and Private Sectors , Clark and Newhouse. 2021
Published as Munnell, Alicia & Sanzenbacher, Geoffrey T. & Walters, Abigail N., 2021. "How do older workers use nontraditional jobs?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 374-392, July.
Published as Alicia Munnell & Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher & Abigail N. Walters, 2021. "How do older workers use nontraditional jobs?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, vol 20(3), pages 374-392.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26379.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: How do older workers use nontraditional jobs? (2021)
Chapter: How Do Older Workers Use Nontraditional Jobs? (2019)
Working Paper: How Do Older Workers Use Nontraditional Jobs? (2019)
Working Paper: How Do Older Workers Use Nontraditional Jobs? (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26379

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26379

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().