Gender norms and partners’ joint retirement decisions: learning from a Norwegian reform

We argue that gender norms may shape partners’ joint retirement decision. We study a 2011 pension reform in Norway, which incentivized postponing retirement for employees of many private sector firms. Using Norwegian register data, we construct population samples of older dual-earner couples in which only one partner was eligible for the reform, and link them to their mothers’ employment status when partners were young, to capture gender norms. Taking an event-study differences-in-differences approach, we find significant employment effects for the partner directly affected by the reform, and heterogeneous spillover effects for the other partner. In particular, women with an employed mother-in-law, but not those with a stay-home mother-in-law, increase their employment, if their husband does so, due to the reform. In contrast, men with a stay-at-home mother are more likely to postpone retirement if their wife does so, following the reform.