The retirement decisions of spouses may be interdependent for various reasons: similarity of tastes, joint assets, sharing rules for income and housework, or complementarity of leisure. Because of data limitations, only a few empirical studies exist on this topic. From a policy point of view...

This paper studies the role of wage and pension pressures in explaining the budget deficit crisis of 1991–2 after the remarkable 1990 Polish economic stabilization and liberalization. It also explains the persistence of the high tax wedge that later helped overcome the budget crisis. The...

The present Paper studies the retirement incentives for elderly people in Belgium. We model the incentive structure built into the various public early retirement and retirement systems. First, we compute indicators of benefit entitlement such as the social security wealth. Then, we use three...

This study investigates the labour force behaviour of older married couples in Germany. Monthly observations from the first 11 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) are used to describe and analyse the relationship between the labour force behaviour of husbands and wives. The...

The issue of the retirement age is fundamentally linked to policies on social protection. It is an issue that inevitably causes debate and has proponents, men and women, who argue on both sides. During preparation of the gender equality law in Vietnam, several options were presented for changing...

This edition of the Pension Reform Primer examines the global trend in early retirement among rich and poorer countries, the reasons for people retiring early, the burden of early retirement on the pension system, recent policy initiatives to promote employment of older workers, and people's...