Health problems as determinants of retirement: are self-rated measures endogenous?

We explore alternative measures of unobserved health status in order to identify effects of mental and physical capacity for work on older men's retirement. Traditional self-ratings of poor health are tested against more objectively measured instruments. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we find that health problems influence retirement plans more strongly than do economic variables. Specifically, men in poor overall health expected to retire one to two years earlier, an effect that persists after correcting for potential endogeneity of self-rated health problems. The effects of detailed health problems are also examined in depth.

A benefit of one's own: older women's entitlement to Social Security retirement.

This article explores differences in Social Security eligibility and benefit levels for older men and women using survey data from the Health and Retirement Study combined with administrative records on actual work histories and Social Security rules. We are able to determine the fully insured status of those persons, how close they are to meeting eligibility criteria when they are not fully insured, and their prospects for benefits. Around three-quarters of older women nearing retirement today will be fully insured for Social Security old-age benefits on the basis of their own accounts, but the rest would need substantial extra employment to rise above the eligibility threshold. Further, two-thirds of older married women who are fully insured have sufficient lifetime earnings to translate into an age-65 primary insurance amount worth at least half their husband's, but the other one-third can expect no additional retirement benefit from contributing to Social Security late in life. Finally, most wives will not be able to improve their benefits by working more under current rules. These results have mixed implications regarding the potential impact of women's rising labor force attachment on eventual retirement benefits. Working more years could increase women's chances of becoming eligible for Social Security benefits, but that effect is likely to be small. Furthermore, even when women do become fully insured according to the rules, not many wives will receive a higher benefit at the margin. The reason is that married women still receive higher Social Security benefits as a spouse than they do on the basis of their own work record. In fact, the net benefit from Social Security due to additional work is negative once one takes into account the Social Security contributions the women paid while employed. Benefits paid to widows are even more likely to be based on the spouse's work history rather than on the woman's. Hence, the rising labor market attachment of women in the future may increase their eligibility for benefits but will produce only modest (and often negative) impacts on their old-age Social Security benefits under current rules.

Social security reforms and poverty among older dual-earner couples.

The author analyzes factors affecting the retirement decisions of couples in which both spouses work. She "develops a framework for assessing how several past and prospective Social Security reforms might be expected to affect older working couples' retirement ages and retirement incomes. Two questions are addressed in some detail: (1) What are the likely effects of various changes in Social Security rules on the retirement decisions of older working women and their husbands? and (2) How might these changes alter the incidence of poverty among retired dual-earner couples? Empirical evidence from the United States suggests that many benefit reforms currently being discussed in policy circles will enhance Social Security system revenues, but will also worsen the economic status of an important segment of dual-earner couples."

Married women's retirement behavior.

PIP: The Longitudinal Retirement Survey, a panel study conducted by the US Social Security Administration in 1969-79 of married women who were private sector workers in 1969 and had employed husbands, allows for the empirical analysis of the economic and family determinants of women's retirement behavior. This study tested a life cycle model of women's retirement behavior. This study tested a life cycle model of women's retirement decisions. In the sample of 139 women who were followed for 10 years, the average age at retirement was 62 years (compared with 64 years for males). 67% of the respondents retired prior to or at the same time as their husbands. The model incorporated 3 types of explanatory factors: measures of income opportunities, measures of retirement or years away from the labor force, and family responsibility measures. Evidence from the regression model suggests that a working wife's retirement decision is most strongly influenced by the husband's income, his health status, and the difference in age between the spouses. The increase in the wife's discounted income stream if she defers retirement to age 65 years has a stronger substitution than income effect, but the coefficient is not significant. Logit models, which can explicitly incorporate income and leisure information relevant to each retirement date, further confirm the greater impact of family responsibilities that economic opportunities on married women's retirement decisions. Married women seem to value nonwork years highly, especially if their spouse is older than they, but will defer retirement if their husband is in poor health. On the other hand, women's retirement choices are not affected by whether the husband is retired or the presence of dependent children. These findings contrast sharply with research indicating that economic opportunities are the predominant determinants of men's retirement decisions.^ieng

A mental health capitation program: II. Cost-benefit analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Total monetized and nonmonetized costs and benefits to society of the Monroe-Livingston demonstration project's capitated payment system (CPS) were analyzed. METHODS: Total costs and benefits of care for individuals who were prerandomized to an experimental group (of whom about 57 percent were enrolled in the CPS) were compared with those for a control group who received traditional fee-for-service care. Separate two-year results are presented for continuous patients, who were enrolled in a comprehensive CPS plan (N = 201) and for intermittent patients, who were enrolled in a partial plan (N = 155). RESULTS: All groups showed improvements on many psychosocial measures over the two years. Continuous patients in the experimental group experienced less hospitalization, more case management and transportation services, and higher levels of victimization and were more likely to live in unsupervised settings than continuous patients in the control group. Total annual per patient costs for care of continuous patients ranged from $74,000 to more than $100,000, largely reflecting differences in rates of hospitalization. Experimental subjects in the partial capitation condition differed from the control group in this plan on fewer measures; both groups reported high levels of case management and social support services and relatively lower levels of supervised housing. CONCLUSIONS: The CPS resulted in major improvements in the community's services for persons with serious mental illness and reduced the proportion of care provided in the state hospital.