Do not go gentle into that good night: the effect of retirement on subsequent mortality of U.S. Supreme Court justices, 1801-2006.

Mortality hazard and length of time until death are widely used as health outcome measures and are themselves of fundamental demographic interest. Considerable research has asked whether labor force retirement reduces subsequent health and its mortality measures. Previous studies have reported positive, negative, and null effects of retirement on subsequent longevity and mortality hazard, but inconsistent findings are difficult to resolve because (1) nearly all data confound retirement with unemployment of older workers, and often, (2) endogeneity bias is rarely addressed analytically. To avoid these problems, albeit at loss of generalizability to the entire labor force, I examine data from an exceptional subgroup that is of interest in its own right: U.S. Supreme Court justices of 1801-2006. Using discrete-time event history methods, I estimate retirement effects on mortality hazard and years-left-alive. Some substantive and methodological considerations suggest models that specify endogenous effects estimated by instrumental variables (IV) probit, IV Tobit, and IV regression methods. Other considerations suggest estimation by endogenous switching (ES) probit and ES regression. Estimates by all these methods are consistent with the hypothesis that, on average, retirement decreases health, as indicated by elevated mortality hazard and diminished years-left-alive. These findings may apply to other occupational groups characterized by high levels of work autonomy, job satisfaction, and financial security.

Retirement and death in office of U.S. Supreme Court justices.

We construct demographic models of retirement and death in office of U.S. Supreme Court justices, a group that has gained demographic notice, evaded demographic analysis, and is said to diverge from expected retirement patterns. Models build on prior multistate labor force status studies, and data permit an unusually clear distinction between voluntary and "induced" retirement. Using data on every justice from 1789 through 2006, with robust, cluster-corrected, discrete-time, censored, event-history methods, we (1) estimate retirement effects of pension eligibility, age, health, and tenure on the timing of justices' retirements and deaths in office, (2) resolve decades of debate over the politicized departure hypothesis that justices tend to alter the timing of their retirements for the political benefit or detriment of the incumbent president, (3) reconsider the nature of rationality in retirement decisions, and (4) consider the relevance of organizational conditions as well as personal circumstances to retirement decisions. Methodological issues are addressed.

Sexual practices and sexual satisfaction: a population based study of Chinese urban adults.

This study examined sexual satisfaction and its social and behavioral correlates among urbanites aged 20-64 in China, using data from a nationally representative sample of 1,194 women and 1,217 men with a spouse or other long-term sexual partner with whom they had sex during the last year. The results from structural equation models suggest a multiplex set of determinants of sexual satisfaction, including relationship characteristics, sexual knowledge and personal values, physical vitality, and environmental impediments. A large proportion of the effect of these background characteristics was mediated by frequent orgasms, varied sexual practices, and perceived partner affection. In particular, much of the effect of knowledge and beliefs was mediated through variety in sexual practices. While many of the observed patterns were shared among women and men, much of the effect of relationship characteristics was mediated through perceived partner affection for women. Men, in contrast, paid greater attention to his partner's physical attractiveness and to her extramarital sex. A sexual transition is well underway in urban China, even if more rapidly for men than for women. While knowledge and values are arguably more important in this transitional period, many antecedents of sexual well-being drawn from the literature on sexual behavior in developed Western countries are also applicable to urban China.