IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v44y2016i1p109-131.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Great Recession, Housing Wealth, and the Retirement Decisions of Older Workers

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Ondrich
  • Alexander Falevich

Abstract

To determine how asset values of older workers affect their future retirement decisions, it is important to take into account how asset values change over asset cycles. This study uses Health and Retirement Study data from waves 1992 through 2010 together with restricted Social Security Administration data on respondents’ occupation to estimate models of the age at first self-reported retirement for the subsample of married males. The model covariates include demographic variables, workplace variables, nonhousing financial wealth, and housing equity. The proportional hazard estimates are, for the most part, significant and of the correct sign. The estimated models suggest that declines in housing wealth during the Great Recession lowered retirement probabilities of married males by as much as 14 percent to 17 percent. This delay was offset in cases where the household had defined benefit or contribution pensions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Ondrich & Alexander Falevich, 2016. "The Great Recession, Housing Wealth, and the Retirement Decisions of Older Workers," Public Finance Review, , vol. 44(1), pages 109-131, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:44:y:2016:i:1:p:109-131
    DOI: 10.1177/1091142114551600
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1091142114551600
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1091142114551600?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gustman, Alan L & Steinmeier, Thomas L, 1986. "A Structural Retirement Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 555-584, May.
    2. Bo Honoré & Áureo de Paula, 2011. "Interdependent Durations in Joint Retirement," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2011-5, Center for Retirement Research, revised Feb 2011.
    3. Goodman, Allen C., 2013. "Is there an S in urban housing supply? or What on earth happened in Detroit?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 179-191.
    4. Case Karl E. & Quigley John M. & Shiller Robert J., 2005. "Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market versus the Housing Market," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-34, May.
    5. Martin Farnham & Purvi Sevak, 2016. "Housing Wealth and Retirement Timing," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 62(1), pages 26-46.
    6. David A. Wise, 1990. "Issues in the Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise90-1, March.
    7. Sueyoshi, Glenn T., 1992. "Semiparametric proportional hazards estimation of competing risks models with time-varying covariates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 25-58.
    8. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier & Nahid Tabatabai, 2011. "How Did the Recession of 2007-2009 Affect the Wealth and Retirement of the Near Retirement Age Population in the Health and Retirement Study?," NBER Working Papers 17547, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Han, Aaron & Hausman, Jerry A, 1990. "Flexible Parametric Estimation of Duration and Competing Risk Models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(1), pages 1-28, January-M.
    10. Blau, David M., 1997. "Social security and the labor supply of older married couples," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 373-418, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Dudel & Mikko Myrskylä, 2017. "Working Life Expectancy at Age 50 in the United States and the Impact of the Great Recession," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(6), pages 2101-2123, December.
    2. Begley, Jaclene & Chan, Sewin, 2018. "The effect of housing wealth shocks on work and retirement decisions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 180-195.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blau, David M. & Riphahn, Regina T., 1999. "Labor force transitions of older married couples in Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 229-252, June.
    2. Agarwal, Sumit & Ambrose, Brent W. & Chomsisengphet, Souphala & Liu, Chunlin, 2006. "An empirical analysis of home equity loan and line performance," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 444-469, October.
    3. Bent Jesper Christensen & Malene Kallestrup‐Lamb, 2012. "The Impact Of Health Changes On Labor Supply: Evidence From Merged Data On Individual Objective Medical Diagnosis Codes And Early Retirement Behavior," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(S1), pages 56-100, June.
    4. Alicia H. Munnell & Steven A. Sass, 2007. "The Labor Supply of Older Americans," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2007-12, Center for Retirement Research, revised Jun 2007.
    5. Costa-Font, Joan & Frank, Richard G. & Swartz, Katherine, 2019. "Access to long term care after a wealth shock: Evidence from the housing bubble and burst," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 103-110.
    6. Lalive, Rafael & Parrotta, Pierpaolo, 2017. "How does pension eligibility affect labor supply in couples?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 177-188.
    7. Benitez-Silva, Hugo & Dwyer, Debra S., 2006. "Expectation formation of older married couples and the rational expectations hypothesis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 191-218, April.
    8. Håkan Selin, 2017. "What happens to the husband’s retirement decision when the wife’s retirement incentives change?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(3), pages 432-458, June.
    9. Benítez-Silva, Hugo & Eren, Selçuk & Heiland, Frank & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi, 2015. "How well do individuals predict the selling prices of their homes?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 12-25.
    10. Shelly J. Lundberg & Jennifer Ward-Batts, 2000. "Saving for Retirement: Household Bargaining and Household Net Worth," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1414, Econometric Society.
    11. Mark Yuying An, 2004. "Likelihood-Based Estimation of a Proportional-Hazard, Competing- Risk Model with Grouped Duration Data," Urban/Regional 0407013, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. John Rust & Christopher Phelan, 1997. "How Social Security and Medicare Affect Retirement Behavior in a World of Incomplete Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(4), pages 781-832, July.
    13. Erik Hernoes & Marte Sollie & Steinar Strøm, 2000. "Early Retirement and Economic Incentives," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 481-502, September.
    14. Michael Baker, 2002. "The Retirement Behavior of Married Couples: Evidence from the Spouse's Allowance," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(1), pages 1-34.
    15. Kristopher Gerardi & Adam Hale Shapiro & Paul S. Willen, 2007. "Subprime outcomes: risky mortgages, homeownership experiences, and foreclosures," Working Papers 07-15, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    16. Alexander M. Danzer, 2013. "Benefit Generosity and the Income Effect on Labour Supply: Quasi‐Experimental Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123, pages 1059-1084, September.
    17. Michaud, P.C. & Vermeulen, F.M.P., 2004. "A Collective Retirement Model : Identification and Estimation in the Presence of Externalities," Other publications TiSEM fb0bfe30-b1e3-4b61-9bf2-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Zhechun He, 2015. "Estimating the Impact of House Prices on Household Labour Supply in the UK," Discussion Papers 15/19, Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Teresa D. Harrison, 2007. "Consolidations and closures: an empirical analysis of exits from the hospital industry," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(5), pages 457-474, May.
    20. Austan Goolsbee, 1998. "The Business Cycle, Financial Performance, and the Retirement of Capital Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 474-496, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:44:y:2016:i:1:p:109-131. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.