"Trends and determinants of work-retirement transitions in Japan, Germany and England"

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, national policy makers have attempted to discourage early retirement and to promote longer working life through changes in labor market and welfare regulations. However, comparative research suggests that not all workers are equally able to prolong their employment careers. Thus, while it is likely that national policies raise the overall level of labor market participation, national 'active aging' measures might create new social and labor market inequalities. This paper explores how institutional differences in three welfare states (England, Germany and Japan) affect individual retirement decisions on the aggregate level, and variations in individuals´ degree of choice within and across these countries. The aim is therefore to investigate which groups of older workers in the three countries are disproportionately at risk of being 'pushed' out of employment before reaching formal national retirement ages, and how the nature of these inequalities has changed over time. Drawing on evidence from comparable surveys for the three countries (ELSA; SHARE and JSTAR) and using descriptive and multivariate logistic regression analyses, the paper reconstructs the timing of employment-retirement transitions of older workers as well as their concrete reasoning for doing so in order to establish the degree of voluntariness in retirement transitions.