IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this book chapter

The Joint Retirement Decision of Husbands and Wives

In: Issues in the Economics of Aging

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Michael D. Hurd

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to find empirically whether husbands and wives tend to retire at the same time, and to give an explanation of the findings. Similarity of retirement dates could be caused by similarity of tastes (assortative mating), by economic variables, or by the complimentarity of leisure. Each explanation would have different implications for the response of retirement to policy changes. Both simple data analysis and economic models of the age of retirement point to coordination of retirement dates: husbands and wives tend to retire at the same time. According to the results, very little of the coordination is due to economic variables, and simple cross-tabulations rule out assortative mating as an important explanation. This leaves complimentarity of leisure. Because of data limitations, this conclusion is, however, mainly qualitative. The data set is the Mew Beneficiary Survey.

(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c7119.pdf
Download Restriction: no

as
in new window

This chapter was published in:
  • David A. Wise, 1990. "Issues in the Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise90-1, June.
    • This item is provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Chapters with number 7119.
    Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:7119
    Contact details of provider: Postal:
    National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

    Phone: 617-868-3900
    Web page: http://www.nber.org
    Email:


    More information through EDIRC

    Keywords:

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

    as
    in new window


    1. Boskin, Michael J. & Hurd, Michael D., 1978. "The effect of social security on early retirement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 361-377, December.
    2. Gustman, Alan L & Steinmeier, Thomas L, 1986. "A Structural Retirement Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 555-584, May.
    3. Burtless, Gary & Moffitt, Robert A, 1985. "The Joint Choice of Retirement Age and Postretirement Hours of Work," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(2), pages 209-236, April.
    4. Olivia S. Mitchell & Gary S. Fields, 1983. "Economic Incentives to Retire: A Qualitative Choice Approach," NBER Working Papers 1096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Mitchell, Olivia S & Fields, Gary S, 1984. "The Economics of Retirement Behavior," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 84-105, January.
    6. Pozzebon, Silvana & Mitchell, Olivia S, 1989. "Married Women's Retirement Behavior," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 39-53.
    7. Diamond, P. A. & Hausman, J. A., 1984. "Individual retirement and savings behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 81-114.
    8. Sickles, Robin C & Taubman, Paul, 1986. "An Analysis of the Health and Retirement Status of the Elderly," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(6), pages 1339-1356, November.
    9. Marjorie Honig & Giora Hanoch, 1985. "Partial Retirement as a Separate Mode of Retirement Behavior," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 20(1), pages 21-46.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

    as
    in new window


    Cited by:
    This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Access and download statistics

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:7119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ()

    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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

    This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.