IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/crr/issbrf/ib2008-8-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do State Economics or Individual Characteristics Determine Whether Older Men Work?

Author

Listed:
  • Alicia H. Munnell
  • Mauricio Soto
  • Robert K. Triest
  • Natalia A. Zhivan

Abstract

The difference in labor force participation rates of men aged 55-64 across the United States is astounding. For example, West Virginia has a participation rate below 60 percent, while South Dakota has a participation rate approaching 90 percent (see Figure 1). This fact in itself has significant implications for the pressures that states will face as the baby boom starts to retire in the face of a contracting retirement income system, declining housing prices, and a lackluster stock market. Despite these marked differences, little is known about the reasons for such variations in work patterns. An earlier brief, using the Current Population Survey for the period 1977-2007, demonstrated that the differences in the labor force participation of older men were related to labor market conditions, the nature of employment, and the employee characteristics in each state as well as to a “pseudo replacement rate.” These variables explained more than one-third of the total variation...

Suggested Citation

  • Alicia H. Munnell & Mauricio Soto & Robert K. Triest & Natalia A. Zhivan, 2008. "Do State Economics or Individual Characteristics Determine Whether Older Men Work?," Issues in Brief ib2008-8-13, Center for Retirement Research, revised Sep 2008.
  • Handle: RePEc:crr:issbrf:ib2008-8-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://crr.bc.edu/briefs/do-state-economics-or-individual-characteristics-determine-whether-older-men-work/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alicia H. Munnell & Mauricio Soto & Robert K. Triest & Natalia A. Zhivan, 2008. "How Much Do State Economics and Other Characteristics Affect Retirement Behavior?," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2008-12, Center for Retirement Research, revised Sep 2008.
    2. F. Thomas Juster & Richard Suzman, 1995. "An Overview of the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30, pages 7-56.
    3. Dan A. Black & Xiaoli Liang, 2005. "Local Labor Market Conditions and Retirement Behavior," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2005-8, Center for Retirement Research, revised May 2005.
    4. Kelly D. Edmiston, 2006. "Workers’ Compensation and State Employment Growth," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 121-145, February.
    5. Edward M. Feasel, 2002. "Understanding Unemployment Across California Counties," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(1), pages 12-30, January.
    6. Alicia H. Munnell & Mauricio Soto & Natalia A. Zhivan, 2008. "Why Do More Older Men Work in Some States?," Issues in Brief ib2008-8-6, Center for Retirement Research, revised Apr 2008.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Alicia H. Munnell & Mauricio Soto & Robert K. Triest & Natalia A. Zhivan, 2008. "How Much Do State Economics and Other Characteristics Affect Retirement Behavior?," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2008-12, Center for Retirement Research, revised Sep 2008.
    2. Leora Friedberg & Michael Owyang & Anthony Webb, 2008. "Identifying Local Differences in Retirement Patterns," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2008-18, Center for Retirement Research, revised Dec 2008.
    3. Leora Friedberg & Michael T. Owyang & Wei Sun & Anthony Webb, 2017. "How Do Local Labor Markets Affect Retirement?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 99(3), pages 259-278.
    4. Rashmita Basu, 2013. "Willingness-to-pay to prevent Alzheimer’s disease: a contingent valuation approach," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 233-245, December.
    5. Karsten Hank & Hendrik Jürges & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2006. "Die Messung der Greifkraft als objektives Gesundheitsmaß in sozialwissenschaftlichen Bevölkerungsumfragen: erhebungsmethodische und inhaltliche Befunde auf der Basis von SHARE und SOEP," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 577, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Elder, Harold W. & Rudolph, Patricia M., 2000. "Beliefs and actions: expectations and savings decisions by older Americans," Financial Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 33-45, 00.
    7. 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.
    8. Michael D. Hurd & James P. Smith, 2001. "Anticipated and Actual Bequests," NBER Chapters, in: Themes in the Economics of Aging, pages 357-392, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. 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.
    10. John Bound & Michael Schoenbaum & Timothy Waidmann, 1996. "Race Differences in Labor Force Attachment and Disability Status," NBER Working Papers 5536, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Hugo Benitez-Silva & Moshe Buchinsky & John Rust & Emine Boz & Joseph B. Nichols & Sharbani Roy & Ignez Tristao, 2005. "Health Status, Insurance, and Expenditures in the Transition from Work to Retirement," Department of Economics Working Papers 05-11, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    12. Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Michael F. Bryan & Simon M. Potter & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert Van der Klaauw, 2008. "Rethinking the measurement of household inflation expectations: preliminary findings," Staff Reports 359, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    13. Newton, Nicky J. & Ryan, Lindsay H. & King, Rachel T. & Smith, Jacqui, 2014. "Cohort differences in the marriage–health relationship for midlife women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 64-72.
    14. Khwaja, Ahmed & Silverman, Dan & Sloan, Frank, 2007. "Time preference, time discounting, and smoking decisions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 927-949, September.
    15. Michael Hurd & James P. Smith, 2002. "Expected Bequests and Their Distribution," NBER Working Papers 9142, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Tamara Cadet & Shanna L. Burke & Frances Nedjat-Haiem & Louanne Bakk & Mitra Naseh & Adrienne Grudzien & Janice O’Driscoll & Amary Alcide, 2021. "Timing of Immigration Effects Asset Change Among Hispanic Caregivers of Older Family Members," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 561-572, September.
    17. Michael D. Hurd & Susann Rohwedder, 2006. "Some Answers to The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle," Working Papers WR-342, RAND Corporation.
    18. Steven Haider & Gary Solon, 2006. "Life-Cycle Variation in the Association between Current and Lifetime Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1308-1320, September.
    19. Khwaja, Ahmed & Sloan, Frank & Chung, Sukyung, 2006. "Learning about individual risk and the decision to smoke," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 683-699, July.
    20. Pamela Giustinelli & Charles F. Manski, 2018. "Survey Measures Of Family Decision Processes For Econometric Analysis Of Schooling Decisions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 81-99, January.

    More about this item

    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:crr:issbrf:ib2008-8-13. 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: Amy Grzybowski or Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/crrbcus.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.