Inequalities in retirement lifespan in the United States

Jiaxin Shi, Christian Dudel, Christiaan Monden and Alyson A. van Raalte
Additional contact information
Jiaxin Shi: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Christian Dudel: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Alyson A. van Raalte: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-2022-015, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: Objectives Persistent and substantial disparities in old-age mortality suggest that there may be great inequalities in the length of retirement life. This study aims to assess gender and educational differences in the average retirement lifespan and the variation in retirement lifespan, taking into account individual labor-force exit and re-entry dynamics. Methods We used longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study in 1996–2016, focusing on respondents aged 50 and above (N = 32,228). Multistate life tables were estimated using discrete-time event history models. The average retirement lifespan, as well as absolute and relative inequalities in retirement lifespan, were calculated analytically. Results We found that among women there was a persistent educational gradient in average retirement lifespan over the whole period studied; among men, the relationship between education and retirement expectancy was different across periods. Women and the lower-educated had higher absolute inequality in retirement lifespan than men and the higher-educated—yet these relationships were reversed when examined by relative inequality. Discussion Our multistate approach provides an accurate and comprehensive picture of the retirement lifespan of older Americans in the past two decades. Such findings should be considered in high-level discussions on Social Security. Potential reforms such as raising the eligibility age or cutting benefits may have unexpected implications for different social groups due to their differential impacts on retirement initiation and re-entry dynamics.

Keywords: USA; age at retirement; inequality; life expectancy; mortality; multi-state life tables; retirement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dem and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2022-015.pdf (text/html)

Related works:
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:dem:wpaper:wp-2022-015

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2022-015

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Wilhelm ().