Are today's youngest retirees following in the footsteps of their older peers with respect to gradual retirement? Recent evidence from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) suggests that most older Americans with full-time career jobs later in life transitioned to another job prior to complete labor force withdrawal. This paper explores the retirement patterns of a younger cohort of individuals from the HRS known as the "War Babies." These survey respondents were born between 1942 and 1947 and were 57 to 62 years of age at the time of their fourth bi-annual HRS interview in 2004. We compare the War Babies to an older cohort of HRS respondents and find that, for the most part, the War Babies have followed the gradual-retirement trends of their slightly older predecessors. Traditional one-time, permanent retirements appear to be fading, a sign that the impact of changes in the retirement income landscape since the 1980s continues to unfold.
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Length: 37 pages Date of creation: 30 May 2007 Date of revision:
22 Dec 2008 Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:670
Note: Previously circulated as "An Update on Bridge Jobs: the HRS War Babies" Contact details of provider: Postal: Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill MA 02467 USA Phone: 617-552-3670 Fax: +1-617-552-2308 Email: Web page: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC/ More information through EDIRC
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Find related papers by JEL classification: J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Private Pensions H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
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