This book summarizes research on individual retirement decisions and aggregate retirement trends. It also serves as an excellent reference source on the economics of retirement.

The study compares the retirement plans and preferences of a recent sample of older Americans. The Data suggest that a substantial minority of older workers expect to retire earlier than they really want to, and that many would delay retirement under different terms and conditions of employment....

Reports that the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted sometime in the early part of the next century reinforce the need to make retirement policy in the United States more accommodating for those who want to work. While there is general agreement that disincentives to work at older ages...

Recent trends toward earlier retirement threaten future supplies of labor and the financial stability of many of our public and private pension systems. One of the few federal efforts now in place to reverse this trend has been the 1977 law outlawing mandatory retirement before age 70 for most...