IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/snb/snbwpa/2012-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Retirement Age across Countries: The Role of Occupations

Author

Listed:
  • Philip U. Sauré
  • Hosny Zoabi

Abstract

Cross-country variation in average retirement age is usually attributed to institutional differences that affect individuals' incentives to retire. We suggest a different approach. Since workers in different occupations naturally retire at different ages, the composition of occupations within an economy matters for its average retirement age. Using U.S. data we infer the average retirement age by occupation, which we then use to predict the retirement age of 38 countries according to the occupational composition of these countries. Our findings suggest that the differences in occupational composition explain up to 39.2% of the observed cross-country variation in retirement age.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip U. Sauré & Hosny Zoabi, 2012. "Retirement Age across Countries: The Role of Occupations," Working Papers 2012-06, Swiss National Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2012-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.snb.ch/en/publications/research/working-papers/2012/working_paper_2012_06
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Levinsohn, James, 1999. "Employment responses to international liberalization in Chile," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 321-344, April.
    2. Oded Galor, 2005. "The Demographic Transition and the Emergence of Sustained Economic Growth," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 494-504, 04/05.
    3. Allen, Steven G, 2001. "Technology and the Wage Structure," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 440-483, April.
    4. F. Thomas Juster, 1975. "Education, Income, and Human Behavior," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number just75-1, March.
    5. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 1998. "The European Unemployment Dilemma," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 514-550, June.
    6. Avraham Ebenstein & Ann Harrison & Margaret McMillan & Shannon Phillips, 2022. "Estimating The Impact Of Trade And Offshoring On American Workers Using The Current Population Surveys," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 12, pages 275-289, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. 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.
    8. Mary Amiti & Shang‐Jin Wei, 2009. "Service Offshoring and Productivity: Evidence from the US," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 203-220, February.
    9. Sherwin Rosen, 1975. "Measuring the Obsolescence of Knowledge," NBER Chapters, in: Education, Income, and Human Behavior, pages 199-232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 1999. "Introduction to "Social Security and Retirement around the World"," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security and Retirement around the World, pages 1-35, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Krueger, Alan B & Pischke, Jorn-Steffen, 1992. "The Effect of Social Security on Labor Supply: A Cohort Analysis of the Notch Generation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 412-437, October.
    12. Oded_Galor, 2004. "The Demographic Transition and the Emergence of Sustained Economic Growth," Working Papers 2004-13, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    13. Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan & David N. Weil, 2001. "Mortality Change, the Uncertainty Effect, and Retirement," Working Papers 2001-47, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    14. Joseph F. Quinn, 1977. "Microeconomic Determinants of Early Retirement: A Cross-Sectional View of White Married Men," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 12(3), pages 329-346.
    15. Leora Friedberg, 2003. "The Impact of Technological Change on Older Workers: Evidence from Data on Computer Use," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(3), pages 511-529, April.
    16. Moshe Hazan, 2009. "Longevity and Lifetime Labor Supply: Evidence and Implications," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(6), pages 1829-1863, November.
    17. Peter K. Schott, 2003. "One Size Fits All? Heckscher-Ohlin Specialization in Global Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 686-708, June.
    18. Avner Ahituv & Joseph Zeira, 2011. "Technical Progress and Early Retirement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(551), pages 171-193, March.
    19. Mincer, Jacob & Higuchi, Yoshio, 1988. "Wage structures and labor turnover in the United States and Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 97-133, June.
    20. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    21. Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan & David Weil, 2010. "Mortality change, the uncertainty effect, and retirement," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 65-91, March.
    22. Runjuan Liu & Daniel Trefler, 2008. "Much Ado About Nothing: American Jobs and the Rise of Service Outsourcing to China and India," NBER Working Papers 14061, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 1999. "Social Security and Retirement around the World," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub99-1, March.
    24. Richard Blundell & Costas Meghir & Sarah Smith, 2002. "Pension Incentives and the Pattern of Early Retirement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 153-170, March.
    25. Coile Courtney, 2004. "Retirement Incentives and Couples' Retirement Decisions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-30, July.
    26. Peter K. Schott, 2004. "Across-Product Versus Within-Product Specialization in International Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 647-678.
    27. Gustman, Alan L. & Steinmeier, Thomas L., 2005. "The social security early entitlement age in a structural model of retirement and wealth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 441-463, February.
    28. Patrick Aubert & Eve Caroli & Muriel Roger, 2006. "New technologies, organisation and age: firm-level evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(509), pages 73-93, February.
    29. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Gunther Fink & Jocelyn Finlay, 2009. "The Effect of Social Security Reform on Male Retirement in High and Middle Income Countries," PGDA Working Papers 4809, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    30. Gary Burtless, 1986. "Social Security, Unanticipated Benefit Increases, and the Timing of Retirement," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(5), pages 781-805.
    31. Filer, Randall K & Petri, Peter A, 1988. "A Job-Characteristics Theory of Retirement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(1), pages 123-129, February.
    32. Bartel, Ann P & Lichtenberg, Frank R, 1987. "The Comparative Advantage of Educated Workers in Implementing New Technology," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(1), pages 1-11, February.
    33. Stock, James H & Wise, David A, 1990. "Pensions, the Option Value of Work, and Retirement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(5), pages 1151-1180, September.
    34. Ana L. Revenga, 1992. "Exporting Jobs?The Impact of Import Competition on Employment and Wages in U. S. Manufacturing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 255-284.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Do the Greek retire earlier because of their occupations?
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-07-23 19:43:00

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Даниелян, Владимир, 2016. "Детерминанты Пенсионного Возраста: Обзор Исследований [Determinants of Retirement Age: A Review of Research]," MPRA Paper 73865, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Beladi, Hamid & Sinha, Chaitali & Kar, Saibal, 2016. "To educate or not to educate: Impact of public policies in developing countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 94-101.
    3. Karolina Goraus & Krzysztof Makarski & Joanna Tyrowicz, 2014. "Does social security reform reduce gains from increasing the retirement age?," Working Papers 2014-03, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    4. Joanna Tyrowicz & Krzysztof Makarski & Marcin Bielecki, 2016. "Reforming retirement age in DB and DC pension systems in an aging OLG economy with heterogenous agents," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-36, December.
    5. Makarski, Krzysztof & Tyrowicz, Joanna, 2019. "On welfare effects of increasing retirement age," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 718-746.

    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. Courtney C. Coile, 2015. "Economic Determinants Of Workers’ Retirement Decisions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 830-853, September.
    2. Lalive, Rafael & Parrotta, Pierpaolo, 2017. "How does pension eligibility affect labor supply in couples?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 177-188.
    3. Pedro Cavalcanti Ferreira & Marcelo Rodrigues dos Santos, 2013. "The Effect of Social Security, Health, Demography and Technology on Retirement," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(2), pages 350-370, April.
    4. Andries de Grip & Didier Fouarge & Raymond Montizaan, 2013. "How Sensitive are Individual Retirement Expectations to Raising the Retirement Age?," De Economist, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 225-251, September.
    5. Liebman, Jeffrey B. & Luttmer, Erzo F.P. & Seif, David G., 2009. "Labor supply responses to marginal Social Security benefits: Evidence from discontinuities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1208-1223, December.
    6. Blundell, R. & French, E. & Tetlow, G., 2016. "Retirement Incentives and Labor Supply," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 457-566, Elsevier.
    7. Даниелян, Владимир, 2016. "Детерминанты Пенсионного Возраста: Обзор Исследований [Determinants of Retirement Age: A Review of Research]," MPRA Paper 73865, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Börsch-Supan, A. & Härtl, K. & Leite, D.N., 2016. "Social Security and Public Insurance," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 781-863, Elsevier.
    9. Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti & Santos, Marcelo Rodrigues dos, 2008. "The effect of social security, demography and technology on retirement," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 683, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    10. Philip Sauré & Arthur Seibold & Elizaveta Smorodenkova & Hosny Zoabi, 2023. "Occupations Shape Retirement across Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 10365, CESifo.
    11. Jorge González Chapela, 2012. "The Effect of Residential Location on Retirement Age: Theory and Some Evidence on Male Behaviour in the US," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(10), pages 2153-2168, August.
    12. Rosa Aísa & Fernando Pueyo & Marcos Sanso, 2012. "Life expectancy and labor supply of the elderly," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 545-568, January.
    13. Staubli, Stefan & Zweimüller, Josef, 2011. "Does Raising the Retirement Age Increase Employment of Older Workers?," IZA Discussion Papers 5863, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. 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.
    15. Glomm, Gerhard & Jung, Juergen & Tran, Chung, 2009. "Macroeconomic implications of early retirement in the public sector: The case of Brazil," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 777-797, April.
    16. Hakola, Tuulia, 2002. "Alternative Approaches to Model Withdrawals from the Labour Market – A Literature Review," Working Paper Series 2003:4, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    17. Bound, John & Stinebrickner, Todd & Waidmann, Timothy, 2010. "Health, economic resources and the work decisions of older men," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 156(1), pages 106-129, May.
    18. Frank van Erp & Niels Vermeer & Daniel van Vuuren, 2013. "Non-financial determinants of retirement," CPB Discussion Paper 243.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    19. Tomasz Jedynak, 2022. "Does the Formulation of the Decision Problem Affect Retirement?—Framing Effect and Planned Retirement Age," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-30, February.
    20. Courtney Coile & Jonathan Gruber, 2000. "Social Security and Retirement," NBER Working Papers 7830, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Retirement Age; Occupational Distribution; Cross-Country Analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • J82 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Labor Force Composition

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:snb:snbwpa:2012-06. 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: Enzo Rossi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/snbgvch.html .

    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.