In most data sets of labor force participation of the elderly, an empirical regularity that emerges is that retirement rates are particularly high at age 65. While there are numerous economic reasons why individuals may choose to retire at 65, empirical models that have attempted to explain the...

Although income and wealth are frequently used as indicators of well-being, they are increasingly augmented with subjective measures such as life satisfaction to capture broader dimensions of individuals’ well-being. Based on data from large surveys of individuals, life satisfaction in...

Over the last two decades policy reforms in the Netherlands have increased work incentives, resulting in rising employment rates at older ages. Over the same period health of the population has increased as well. A natural question is how much people could work taking into account their health...

We provide an overview of research that indicates that older women face unique challenges and opportunities with respect to work, retirement, Social Security, and age discrimination law. We present estimates of poverty by age and sex, showing that poverty increases with age for women due to...

Reducing or eliminating Social Security's Retirement Earnings Test (RET) can encourage labor supply of older individuals receiving benefits. However, these reforms can encourage earlier claiming of Social Security benefits, permanently lowering future benefits. We explore the consequences, for...

This paper uses asset and labor market data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to investigate how the recent "Great Recession" has affected the wealth and retirement of those in the population who were just approaching retirement age at the beginning of the recession, a potentially...

Many major government programs transfer resources to older people and implicitly or explicitly tax their labor. In this paper, we shed new light on the labor supply and welfare effects of such programs by investigating the Old Age Assistance Program (OAA), a means-tested and state-administered...

Data from the Bureau of the Census, the Health Care Financing Administration, the NBER Tax File and the Current Population Survey are used to estimate for the elderly (ages 65 and above) consumption of health care and income available for other goods and services in 1975, 1985, and 1995....

We attempt to draw inferences about potential behavioral responses to means-testedquot; income support for the elderly by examining the effects on saving of the Supplemental Securityquot; Income (SSI) program for the aged in the U.S. Part of the SSI program provides payments to thequot; poor...

Despite the importance of living arrangements for well-being and production, the effect of changes in household income on living arrangements is not well understood. This study overcomes the identification problems that have limited the study of the link between income and living arrangements by...