Early Retirement Plans Research Articles

Health Insurance and Early Retirement Plans: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act

Understanding how individuals make retirement plans is key to designing effective policy. In particular, access to affordable insurance during retirement can play an important role in the labor sup...

Ageing workforce and productivity: the unintended effects of retirement regulation in Italy

Making use of the quasi-natural experimental setting provided by the unexpected and sudden change in Italian retirement legislation at the end of 2011 (Fornero law), this article estimates the effect on productivity of a reduction of sorting mechanisms among older workers. The estimation uses provincial-level data. The increase of retirement age and restrictions on early retirement plans locked older employees into the workplace with a negative impact on productivity. Assessing the sorting effect contributes to the age-productivity debate, isolating more precisely the average effect of ageing on productivity.

Reducing Early Retirement in Europe: Do Working Conditions Matter?

The paper argues that the existing literature, based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data, on how working conditions impact on early retirement preferences/plans is hampered by the fact that the approach adopted to capture individuals’ early retirement plans fails to acknowledge that these preferences/plans are defined by reference to the rules that regulate the entitlement to pension benefits. In doing so, these studies risk overestimating the impact of working conditions on early retirement plans. We put forward a more accurate way of capturing individuals’ early retirement preferences/plans, which consists in using information on the age at which respondents plan to start collecting the basic pension benefits, and then computing whether the respondent plans to retire before the official age of retirement in his country of residence. Using SHARE microdata, wave 4, we show that individuals exposed to an imbalance between effort and rewards at work (Siegriest Journal Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1(1), 27–41, 1996 ) are more likely to plan to take-up early retirement. We also show that the effect of poor working conditions is smaller than one would find using the previous approach to the measurement of early retirement preferences/plans.

Trends and Determinants of Work-Retirement Transitions under Changing Institutional Conditions: Germany, England and Japan compared

AbstractMany governments world-wide are promoting longer working life due to the social and economic repercussions of demographic change. However, not all workers are equally able to extend their employment careers. Thus, while national policies raise the overall level of labour market participation, they might create new social and labour market inequalities. This paper explores how institutional differences in the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan affect individual retirement decisions on the aggregate level, and variations in individuals’ degree of choice within and across countries. We investigate which groups of workers are disproportionately at risk of being ‘pushed’ out of employment, and how such inequalities have changed over time. We use comparable national longitudinal survey datasets focusing on the older population in England, Germany and Japan. Results point to cross-national differences in retirement transitions. Retirement transitions in Germany have occurred at an earlier age than in England and Japan. In Japan, the incidence of involuntary retirement is the lowest, reflecting an institutional context prescribing that employers provide employment until pension age, while Germany and England display substantial proportions of involuntary exits triggered by organisational-level redundancies, persistent early retirement plans or individual ill-health.

The Effect of Age Discrimination Laws on Age-Earnings Profiles of Postsecondary Faculty

This study investigates the impact of the abolition of mandatory retirement on earnings profiles of faculty in postsecondary institutions. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) excluded faculty from the protection of age discrimination laws until January 1, 1994, due to perceived adverse effects of this legislation on the academic labor market. After 1994, research has found that more faculty are remaining employed beyond the age of 70 and more institutions are offering early retirement plans. This study adds to the literature by finding that the policy change has steepened age-earnings profiles for cohorts entering the labor market, suggesting a stronger job attachment, and, potentially, efficiency gains.

Perspectives on the Early Retirement Decisions of Farming Couples

In the past decade, the European agricultural sector has undergone rapid structural change. Part of that change is manifested in extended early retirement plans. As pensions play a crucial role in determining the characteristics the change, it is important to establish the factors determining the exit from farming among elderly farmers. This study analyses the choice of pension scheme of farmers. The focus is on the effects of farm and off-farm incomes and various offered economic incentives on farmers’ retirement decisions. The results provide valuable information concerning evaluation of existing programmes and the design of future retirement systems and policies.

Do University Presidents Make a Difference? A Strategic Leadership Theory of University Retrenchment

Although the general consensus is that university presidents do not make a difference, most research on this issue is atheoretical and perceptual in nature. Consequently, I draw on strategic leadership theory to examine whether observable experiences of presidents affected the adoption of retrenchment (early faculty retirement) plans among Ontario universities from 1989-90 to 1997-98. In doing so, I also advance strategic leadership theory by introducing novel measures of leaders' observable experiences and by testing their impact on an outcome (retrenchment) in a noncorporate setting. Since early faculty retirement plans have spread across universities, and since evidence indicates that they combine financial benefits and academic costs, their adoption represents a key structural change begging for explanation. Although the literature attributes the adoptions to uncontrollable forces, I report that presidents play a major role in the adoptions. Those who lack seats on corporate boards, who have non-business or non-economics backgrounds, who are male, and who are recruited externally adopt the plans at lower rates than their respective counterparts. The results portray presidents as exercising circumscribed agency, strategizing on the basis of their personal and professional experiences and making a difference even under inhospitable circumstances.

Ending a Career in the Auto Industry: "30 and out."

During the 1980s the news media were filled with reports of soaring unemployment as 'downsizing' and restructuring' became the new buzzwords. Firms managed their workforce reduction by increasing the attractiveness of their pension plans-especially their early-retirement plans. In this volume, the authors examine the U.S. auto industry and present a full-scale analysis of the work and retirement decisions of its workers. They address organizational context and the logic of financial incentives in employer-provided early retirement plans. The impact of pension provisions, layoffs, plant closures, attitudes about generational equity', and other factors influencing the workers' evaluation of the optimum time to end their careers in the auto industry are explored.

The early retirement plans of women and men: an empirical application

This paper deals with the factors that influence plans to retire from the labour force. We use a theoretical model to explain the empirical findings from a bivariate probit model relating economic, demographic, and social characteristics to retirement plans for over 7000 women and men between the ages of 40 and 64. The results of the analysis concerning retirement intentions suggest that personal, economic and household characteristics are more important determinants of retirement plans for women than men.

The Impact Early Retirement Plans Have on University Goals and Objectives

The Impact Early Retirement Plans Have on University Goals and Objectives

Incentives in Academics: Why is There Tenure?

This paper models ancademic department as an internal labor market. The major problem facing the university administration is to ensure that members of its departments are willing to hire the best possible candidates. Academic tenure is seen to be a necessary condition for this. The analysis is also consistent with other aspects of the academic environment including "tenure-track" appointments, contract buy-outs, early retirement plans, and, when a budget crunch hits, the elimination of entire departments. The results extend in a simple way to other organizations in which members have an input into overall decisions.

Early retirement plans and ADEA

Employment Relations TodayVolume 14, Issue 3 p. 203-210 Perspective on Employment Law Early retirement plans and ADEA Michael W. Sculnick, Michael W. Sculnick Michael W. Sculnick is a member of the firm of Vedder, Price, Kaufman, Kammholz & Day in New York.Search for more papers by this author Michael W. Sculnick, Michael W. Sculnick Michael W. Sculnick is a member of the firm of Vedder, Price, Kaufman, Kammholz & Day in New York.Search for more papers by this author First published: Autumn (Fall) 1987 https://doi.org/10.1002/ert.3910140302 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume14, Issue3Autumn (Fall) 1987Pages 203-210 RelatedInformation

Early Retirement Incentive Plans Stay Popular in Chemical Industry

The period from 1981 to 1983 was the heyday of the early retirement incentive plan. Stunned by back-to-back recessions, firms throughout the U.S. took actions to cut their costs. Payroll was one obvious target, and many companies, wishing to avoid the trauma of outright layoffs, offered inducements to their employees to retire before they reached age 65. In 1981 and 1982 alone, nearly a third of the largest U.S. business organizations made such offers. For the entire U.S. business community, the pace has slowed now. In the chemical industry, on the other hand, special early retirement plans remain widespread. Du Pont, Phillips Petroleum, Atlantic Richfield, Monsanto, and Dow Chemical, for example, have implemented such programs in 1985. More are anticipated. Chemical companies, it appears, are offering such inducements far more frequently than are firms in most other industries. The relatively greater popularity of early retirement incentive programs in the chemical industry maintains a pattern establishe...

The Determinants of Planned Retirement Age

This paper develops and estimates a model of planned retirement age that views the retirement decision as depending partially on individual tastes and opportunities--reflected in retirement plans--and partially on unforeseeable events such as the onset of health problems or the unexpected loss of a job. Empirical results for both elderly men and women, based on the 1969 wave of the Longitudinal Retirement History Study, are consistent with the model. In particular, current poor health and the expected receipt of Social Security and other pensions increase the likelihood of early retirement plans. (Author's abstract.)

Career Age and Research-Professional Activities of Academic Scientists

Six alternative theoretical models are employed to determine the relationship between age and several performance and activity variables for a national sample of doctorate faculty members in seven selected physical science, engineering, biological science, and social science fields. The relationships are shown to be generally weak and not systematically generalizable across fields. Results are interpreted with respect to possible methodological artifacts, selective attrition, changing market conditions for academic personnel, generational and vintage effects, and maturational or aging effects. From a performance standpoint, the findings suggest that the instituting of early retirement plans may be more feasible now than in the future, but that faculty policies related to dealing with the period of “steady-state staffing” in higher education should continue to recognize individual differences and hence not be “standard” or universal in their application.

Wage Trends as Performance Displays Productive Potential: A Model and Application to Academic Early Retirement

Wage trends over the working career are explored in a two-period model assuming that workers have different intrinsic productivities which are manifested stochastically. Firms compete for a limited number of risk averse employees. The basic model, which was developed for the study of academic research employment, postulates that information on prospective productivity is symmetrically available to firm and worker. The observed pattern of academic wages is found to emerge: young faculty is underpaid and the less well paid older faculty is overpaid. The model is used to investigate early retirement plans intended to induce the latter group to retire. It is found that such plans can only be economically advantageous if the prorated overhead costs of a faculty member exceed the value of his output. The basic model is then reinterpreted to answer the general question: when and how should a firm discharge employees of low productivity? A contrasting asymmetrical information model is also introduced (employees have more information than employers). In the asymmetrical case, the composition of the labor force is endogenously determined by self-selection of prospective employees. Firing of employees with poor track records can also occur.