A Balanced Look at Self-Employment Transitions Later in Life

One partial solution to the strains of an aging society is continued work later in life, and self-employment is one way that some older Americans have chosen to remain in the labor force. The individual and societal benefits of continued work are straightforward: each additional year that retirement is delayed is one additional year of earnings and possible savings and one fewer year that assets are spent down. Further, continued work later in life has been shown to maintain or improve the physical and mental health of older workers. Looking ahead to the increasing effects of societal aging and a challenged labor market, and with the perception of intergenerational job competition, is self-employment a partial solution to both societal aging and a stagnant economy? In this brief article, we document some of the policy issues surrounding transitions into self-employment later in life