Joint Role Investments and Synchronization of Retirement: A Sequential Approach to Couples' Retirement Timing

Abstract

We examine the linkage of couples' late-life work exit patterns with earlier work and family roles. Using data from the 1982 U.S. Social Security New Beneficiary Study, we estimate a sequential model of retirement timing of husbands and wives. The results indicate that early investments in work and family roles, as well as late-life characteristics, are associated with how older couples coordinate retirement timing. A woman's employment during the child-rearing years is associated with her earlier retirement, especially following her husband's retirement. The findings reveal the importance of the early “family organizational economy” in defining sequences of family events that combine with late-life events to influence the sequential synchronization of retirement timing.