Retirement and the Evolution of Pension Structure

Leora Friedberg and Anthony Webb ()

Journal of Human Resources, 2005, vol. 40, issue 2

Abstract: Defined benefit pension plans have become considerably less common since the early 1980s, while defined contribution plans have spread. Previous research showed that defined benefit plans, with sharp incentives encouraging retirement after a certain point, contributed to the striking decline in American retirement ages. In this paper we find that the absence of agerelated incentives in defined contribution plans leads workers to retire almost two years later on average, compared to workers with defined benefit plans. Thus, the evolution of pension structure can help explain recent increases in the typical retirement age, after decades of decline.

Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

Downloads: (external link)
http://jhr.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/XL/2/281
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

Related works:
Working Paper: Retirement and the Evolution of Pension Structure (2003)
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:uwp:jhriss:v:40:y:2005:i:2:p281-308

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Resources from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().