Retirement Prospects Research Articles

Pessimistic realistic or aware? – Hungarian youth’s pension expectations

Pension awareness is a specific part of financial awareness focusing on material preparation for the years of retirement at an unknown time to start in the distant future. Its starting point is dual: on the one hand, a recognition of longevity risk and, on the other hand, a proper assessment and planning of future options based on the individual’s current financial position. In this study, we wanted to survey the expectations of Hungarian university students about the state pension system, so we conducted online research with questionnaires. Three groups of questions were devised, (i) expectations of the state pension system, (ii) the generosity of the pension system, and (iii) retirement age. Pension-related expectations show that young people, in general, are quite pessimistic and regard the ageing society as the most worrying factor. Expectations about the generosity of pensions are also pessimistic, both in terms of replacement rate and the rate of state pension compared to pensioners’ total income which is estimated lower than it would actually be under the current laws. Expectations of retirement age reflect the European trends; the youth asked typically plan to retire at 65+. We also looked into regional differences and found the youth of Budapest and the Central-Hungarian region were quite negative on every issue while there were differences in other regions. Young people in Northern Hungary have a higher than average positive view of their retirement prospects. The negative attitude can be explained by the lack of transparency of the pension system and limited access to information. Also, because the reform of the state pension system is delayed in this country, respondents have major issues about its sustainability. Our findings can be important input for decision makers to shape the attitude of pension savings and retirement preparations.

An Excerpt from Carl Gibson-Hill: Boats, Birds, Photography, and History in Late-Colonial Malaya

An Excerpt from Carl Gibson-Hill: Boats, Birds, Photography, and History in Late-Colonial Malaya Brendan Luyt Ed. Note. Carl Alexander Gibson-Hill edited JMBRAS throughout the 1950s, and made notable contributions to photography, ornithology, museology, and the writing of Malayan history. In another era, Gibson-Hill might have been accounted a major figure in colonial scholarship, but he lived in Singapore at a time when British authorities were putting an end to British rule and overseeing the localization of their own positions, and the achievements of this somewhat eccentric individual went unheralded. As Brendan Luyt shows in his biography, Gibson-Hill found many opportunities in Malaya and took full advantage of them, becoming director of the Raffles Museum in Singapore, helping initiate a photographic society, surveying the boats plying Malayan waters, studying Malayan birds, editing the journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and conserving information about the region's past. But the Malaya he inhabited as a member of the colonial elite was crumbling, and independence marginalized both the colonial past and those who served it. The Federation of Malaya became independent in 1957, and while Singapore remained a colony until it joined Malaysia in 1963, the powers and authority associated with colonial rule were eroding. Gibson-Hill's work at the museum gave him influence and access to information, shaping not only his daily activities but also his very identity. In August 1963, at the age of 52, facing the prospect of early retirement and suffering from failing eyesight and bouts of depression, he took his own life. The following excerpt from Luyt's biography is part of a chapter discussing Gibson-Hill's work as a historian. Gibson-Hill anticipated the Asian-centric history that began to emerge in the 1960s, but a second transition in the discipline—a shift in the 1950s towards the institutionalization of history writing in the hands of the academy—diminished the impact of his work. Those employed in the history department of the University of Malaya all had advanced degrees in the subject, and the Museum could no longer claim to be the centre of knowledge production for regional history. Furthermore, other publications competed with the JMBRAS for submissions, including the Far Eastern Quarterly (renamed the Journal of Asian Studies in 1956) and Pacific Affairs, while locally the Department of History at the University of Singapore launched the Journal of Southeast Asian History in 1961. Similarly, academic publishers began to handle greater amounts of material on Southeast Asian history.1 Gibson-Hill showed little interest in new approaches to history. As we have seen, he did not publish a monograph with a major university press, contenting himself with the Memoirs series of the Raffles Museum for a few of his larger works. Neither did he bother to publish in journals other than JMBRAS. In the field of historical writing, he was entirely reliant on the publishing resources of the Museum that he ran from 1955 to 1963, not a good way to win wider recognition in any discipline, especially when the JMBRAS itself [End Page 89] was under something of a cloud, with John Gullick reporting that at the London School of Economics it was always the target 'of a jibe or two at its superficiality'.2 His focus on character, biography, and genealogy also had limited appeal for mainstream historians, who were abandoning these earlier forms of history writing in favour of studies that subordinated individuals to social forces. Gibson-Hill remained fascinated by individuals in history, something he made very clear in a 1952 piece on John Clunies-Ross and Alexander Hare where he observed that in dealing with Hare, he had to discipline himself to write empirical history. 'I have tried to keep the fragments of him on a 2-D plane, presenting only the facts so far apparent and the conclusions that can legitimately be drawn from them. Anything else would have been fatal: had Hare been allowed one breath he would have bulged out from the page, taken possession of the pen, and turned the whole into the picaresque novel to which he really belongs'.3 These are the words of a...

Aging as Readiness and Wariness

Gerontology concerns itself with events in time, either things that have happened or things that may happen. In the former, our work is to describe and explain. In the latter, the occurrence of events is unknowable, but we can nonetheless study people’s imagination of them (how it arises) and how that imagination shapes behavior and attitudes in the present (how it matters). The subjective experience of aging, thus, is one of looking ever forward—welcoming, waiting for, or hoping to avoid what the future may hold. This personal experience of aging toggles between readiness and wariness of the time ahead, one stance incurring or else eclipsing the other. Transitions are fruitful opportunities to study people’s readiness and wariness toward the time ahead, for example, widowhood, the prospect of retirement, and residential relocation. This is when people are more likely to conjure, in their minds, whom they may become. Arguably, the fundamental transition that looms and occupies aging minds (and the minds of loved ones) is not death but rather the potential passage into the “fourth age” of frailty and vulnerability. This prospect hovers above all else: its occurrence increasingly likely but its timing uncertain. About this prospect, gerontology has the capacity, nay the obligation, to promote narratives about later life that shape wariness and readiness for the practical future (e.g., financial matters, bodily care, living arrangements) as well as for the emotional reception of an old age coming ever closer.

Practical Applications of Shoring Up Shortfalls: Women, Retirement, and the Growing GigSupp Economy

In <b>Shoring Up Shortfalls: Women, Retirement, and the Growing GigSupp Economy</b>, from the Summer 2021 issue of <b><i>The Journal of Retirement</i></b>, authors <b>Caroline Lewis Bruckner</b> (of <b>American University</b> in Washington, DC) and <b>Jonathan Barry Forman</b> (of <b>Oklahoma College</b><b>of Law</b> in Norman, OK) explored the growth of gig work that people do to supplement their regular income (GigSupp work). Smartphone apps like Uber and DoorDash have driven the rise of online gig work, but most gig workers do traditional odd jobs offline. Most GigSupp workers are women, and there is little research on them—so the authors focused on the effects of GigSupp work on women’s retirement prospects. They found that many GigSupp workers underreport their income to the IRS and thus undermine their Social Security retirement income potential. This is because current tax laws do not require payors to report many types of payments they make to gig workers. Gig workers also have lower rates of saving for retirement. This is problematic for women gig workers, who are less likely to have full-time jobs and tend to have lower financial literacy. The authors recommended policy changes to improve tax reporting, allow tax withholding from gig worker pay, expand Social Security benefits, and provide financial literacy education.

A Retirement Dashboard for the United States

Navigating the retirement system is not easy for many workers, in the U.S. or abroad. Following several other countries, we advocate creating a retirement dashboard for the United States to help savers manage their retirement preparations. A dashboard would include an online registry letting each worker track their retirement accounts and benefits. It could also offer services such as recovering and consolidating lost accounts, projecting future income, or even providing or referring unbiased financial advice to users. A dashboard would need to overcome obstacles but could materially improve retirement prospects for many American workers.

Self-employment, financial knowledge, and retirement planning

ABSTRACT The level of self-employed individuals’ financial knowledge holds implications with respect to financial stability, economic welfare, and growth of young enterprises. This study found that self-employed individuals did not differ significantly from employed workers in terms of their financial knowledge. Self-employed workers were less likely than employed workers to be engaged in financial practices that improved their long-term financial health. However, there was no difference in the level of confidence in future retirement prospects between self-employed individuals and their employed counterparts. With the ongoing erosion of social protection systems, this research provides a basis for addressing the issue of relatively poor retirement planning among self-employed workers.

Retirement Prospects for the Millennials: What Is the Early Prognosis?

Various policy developments and long-term economic, social, and demographic trends raise worrisome questions about the financial security of future retirees. An erosion in employer-sponsored defined benefit pension coverage and the increase in Social Security’s full retirement age could shrink future benefits. Stagnating employment and earnings for men could threaten future retirement security, because retirement benefits and the capacity to save depend on lifetime earnings. The financial crisis, Great Recession, and collapse of the housing market in the second half of the previous decade could significantly disrupt retirement savings. This paper assesses retirement prospects for future generations, with a special focus on the late Generation-X and Millennial generations. Because retirement outcomes depend on how much people earned and saved when they were younger, the analysis compares trends in employment, earnings, pension coverage, and wealth during working ages across cohorts, using data from the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Consumer Finances. The analysis also projects age-70 incomes for future generations using DYNASIM4, the Urban Institute’s dynamic microsimulation model. This paper found that: - Many recent trends threaten future retirement security, including continuing declines in men’s employment before age 55, stagnating median earnings for men, and a sharp decline in median household wealth after 2007. - Other trends are more encouraging. Gen-X and Millennial women worked and earned more in their 20s and 30s than now-retired women did at those ages, and Millennial men and women are much more likely to have a four-year college degree than previous cohorts. - Projections show that median age-70 income will be higher for Gen-Xers and Millennials than previous generations as earnings grow over time. - However, a larger share of retired Gen-Xers and Millennials will be unable to replace at least three-quarters of their pre-retirement earnings, according to the projections, and will see their living standards decline when they retire. The policy implications of this paper are: - How employment, earnings, and savings patterns evolve over the next three decades will shape Millennials’ retirement incomes. - Policy choices regarding retirement programs, especially strategies to address Social Security’s long-term financing gap, will significantly affect the retirement security of future generations.

Less Debt, More Growth: A Shadow Federal Budget for 2019

The C.D. Howe Institute’s Shadow Federal Budget for 2019 looks past the overspending and deficits the federal government has adopted as its fiscal signature since its election in 2015. Instead, our focus is on ensuring the competitiveness and dynamism of the Canadian economy in the near and medium-term, setting the stage for a return to surpluses during the next Parliament. This Shadow Budget would improve tax competitiveness in the near term and lay the groundwork for a much-needed modernization of the tax system in the years ahead. It would enhance Canadians’ educational, labour-market and retirement prospects. It would facilitate international trade, invest in core federal infrastructure and reduce red tape. And, critically, it would improve fiscal accountability, contain spending and assure Canadians that their federal government is on a return to budget balance.

RETIREMENT CONCERNS: DO INCREASED SAVINGS OFFER HOPE?

ABSTRACT This study examines some key concerns surrounding individual retirement nest eggs. Highlighting the inadequacy of current retirement portfolios, it examines how additional savings, additional education, debt reduction and additional investment would help to improve the retirement prospects of future retirees. Additional savings appear to offer some hope across racial and gender lines. The study builds on a recently published work by Smith and Aggarwal [3] that developed a retirement simulation model based on the latest 2010 Federal data. Keywords Retirement, Savings, Retirement Simulation, Investment, Retirement Planning

Cumulative Advantage and the Retirement Prospects of the Hollowed-Out Generation: A Tale of Two Cohorts

Cumulative Advantage and the Retirement Prospects of the Hollowed-Out Generation: A Tale of Two Cohorts

Emotional Well-Being Following a Later Life Career Change: The Roles of Agency and Resources

More individuals are attempting career changes in later life, as an increasing number of people face precarious retirement prospects. Although many of these older job seekers eventually find new livelihoods, little is known about their emotional well-being subsequent to these changes. Using the 2014 American Institute for Economic Research Older Worker Survey, we evaluate the contributions of demographic characteristics, agency, and resources when estimating three measures of emotional well-being following a successful later life career change ( n = 337). We found that having financial resources during the career transition was associated with all three positive emotional outcomes, while family support and intentionality were also associated with positive emotions. Conversely, prior job prestige and purposeful job training had no relationships with subsequent well-being. These results suggest that later life career changes, despite their challenges, often result in positive emotional outlooks-for those who have the resources to support them.

Job Satisfaction, Retirement Attitude and Intended Retirement Age: A Conditional Process Analysis across Workers' Level of Household Income.

In the contemporary workplace, insight into retirement behaviors is of crucial importance. Previous empirical evidence has found mixed results regarding the relationship between work attitudes, such as job satisfaction, and retirement behaviors, suggesting that further scholarly examination incorporating moderating and mediating variables into retirement models is needed. Drawing on comparative models of attitude to retirement, we hypothesized a direct relationship between job satisfaction and intended retirement age for workers with a high household income and an indirect relationship between job satisfaction and intended retirement age, via retirement attitude, for workers with a low or mean household income. We collected data from a sample of 590 United Kingdom workers aged 50+. Using conditional process analysis, we found that the underlying mechanisms in our research model differ according to socio-economic status. We found no direct effect between job satisfaction and intended retirement age. However, an indirect effect was observed between job satisfaction and intended retirement age, via retirement attitude, for both low- and mean-household income individuals. Specifically, the relationship between job satisfaction and retirement attitude differed according to socio-economic group: for high-household income older workers, there was no relationship between job satisfaction and retirement attitude. However, for low- and mean-household income older workers, we observed a negative relationship between job satisfaction and retirement attitude. Otherwise stated, increases in job satisfaction for mean and low household income workers are likely to make the prospect of retirement less attractive. Therefore, we argue that utmost care must be taken around the conditions under which lower income employees will continue their work when getting older in order to protect their sustainable employability.

What is the role of place identity in older farming couples' retirement considerations?

The contemporary farming context across western countries is experiencing a period of dramatic demographic, social, environmental and economic change. This is having a significant impact particularly in countries such as Australia with a long culture of generational family farming sustained by patrilineal farm succession. Generational farmers maintain strong attachment and unique relationships with place as farms are both homes and sites of production. Retirement involves a reconfiguration of place identity and in the context of change, farming couples contemplating retirement now face unprecedented challenges as they age, with the younger generation reluctant to follow. Drawing on Australian data, this article utilises place identity theory to examine the role of place identity in older farming couples' retirement considerations. Findings are drawn from a 'small story' narrative study of six older generational farming couples, all still actively farming the land. A small story approach permits examination of the ways couples position retirement and how place identity affects couples' agency as they contemplate retirement. The collection of data across two time points, 18 months apart, enabled couples to reflect on how they individually and collectively viewed retirement over time. Findings suggest that the uni-dimensionality of farming men's place identities may be marginalising women as couples navigate the prospect of retirement. The implications of this study are broader than the Australian context as the family farming model remains the most prevalent form of agricultural enterprise across the world.

Retirement Security 2015: Roadmap for Policy Makers - Americanss Views of the Retirement Crisis

A new nationwide public opinion research report finds that an overwhelming majority of Americans – 86 percent – believe the nation faces a retirement crisis.These findings are contained in a new research report, Retirement Security 2015: Roadmap for Policy Makers Americans’ Views of the Retirement Crisis.More specifically, the research finds that:1. An overwhelming majority of Americans believe there is a retirement crisis. Some 86 percent agree that the nation faces a retirement crisis, and 57 percent strongly agree there is a crisis.2. Three in four Americans remain highly anxious about their retirement outlook, but the concern has dissipated slightly as the economy has recovered. Some 74 percent of Americans percent say they are concerned, down from 85 percent as reported in the 2013 study.3. Even though Americans feel slightly less stressed about their retirement prospects, support for steady and reliable retirement income from a pension is high and growing. In fact, 82 percent say a pension is worth having because it provides steady income that won’t run out, while 67 percent of Americans indicate they would be willing to take less in pay increases in exchange for guaranteed income in retirement.4. Americans continue to feel that leaders in Washington do not understand their struggle to save for retirement, and they strongly support efforts by states to set up retirement plans for those workers without access to an employer sponsored plan. Some 87 percent of Americans say Washington policymakers do not understand how hard it is to prepare for retirement, while 84 percent say Washington needs to do more to help ensure retirement security.5. Americans see retirement benefits as a job feature that is almost as important as salary. Salary is viewed as important by 75 percent of American, and retirement benefits are close behind at 72 percent.6. Americans express strong support for pensions for public employees. Few Americans realize that 75 percent of public pension costs are paid for with employee contributions and investment returns. Some 87 percent of Americans say pensions are a good way to recruit and retain qualified teachers, police officers and firefighter. But, only one-fourth of Americans understood that public employers pay for 25 percent or less of public pension costs. More than eight out of ten — a vast majority of Americans — say that all employees, not just the public sector, should have a pension. Some 87 percent of Americans say pensions are a good way to recruit and retain qualified teachers, police officers and firefighters.7. Protecting Social Security benefits is increasingly important. Some 73 percent of Americans say it’s a mistake to cut government spending in such a way as to reduce Social Security benefits for current retirees, up from 67 percent in 2013. When it comes to benefits for future generations, 69 percent oppose cutting government spending that reduces Social Security benefits. Americans are divided when it comes to increasing the amount of Social Security benefits by delaying the withdrawal of benefits at an older age: 42 percent agree with a delay while 52 percent disagree.This biennial nationwide public opinion research is the fourth poll that measures how Americans feel about their financial security in retirement and assesses their views on policies that could improve their retirement outlook. It is intended to serve as a tool for policymakers, thought leaders and retirement service providers as they work to stem the retirement crisis and re-fortify the U.S. retirement infrastructure.The polling was conducted by Greenwald & Associates as a nationwide telephone interview of 801 Americans age 25 or older. The data was balanced to reflect U.S. demographics for age, gender, and income. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percent.

Late-career international migration and reproductive work. A comparison between Peruvian and Ukrainian women in the Southern Europe

Research on the relationship between reproductive work and women´s life trajectories including the experience of labour migration has mainly focused on the case of relatively young mothers who leave behind, or later re-join, their children. While it is true that most women migrate at a younger age, there are a significant number of cases of men and women who move abroad for labour purposes at a more advanced stage, undertaking a late-career migration. This is still an under-estimated and under-researched sub-field that uncovers a varied range of issues, including the global organization of reproductive work and the employment of migrant women as domestic workers late in their lives. By pooling the findings of two qualitative studies, this article focuses on Peruvian and Ukrainian women who seek employment in Spain and Italy when they are well into their forties, or older. A commonality the two groups of women share is that, independently of their level of education and professional experience, more often than not they end up as domestic and care workers. The article initially discusses the reasons for late-career female migration, taking into consideration the structural and personal determinants that have affected Peruvian and Ukrainian women’s careers in their countries of origin and settlement. After this, the focus is set on the characteristics of domestic employment at later life, on the impact on their current lives, including the transnational family organization, and on future labour and retirement prospects. Apart from an evaluation of objective working and living conditions, we discuss women’s personal impressions of being domestic workers in the context of their occupational experiences and family commitments. In this regard, women report varying levels of personal and professional satisfaction, as well as different patterns of continuity-discontinuity in their work and family lives, and of optimism towards the future. Divergences could be, to some extent, explained by the effect of migrants´ transnational social practices and policies of states.

Family Health Histories and Their Impact on Retirement Confidence.

Retirement confidence is a key social barometer. In this article, we examine how personal and parental health histories relate to working-age adults' feelings of optimism or pessimism about their overall retirement prospects. This study links survey data on retirement planning with information on respondents' own health histories and those of their parents. The multivariate models control for the respondents' socio-demographic and economic characteristics along with past retirement planning activities when estimating the relationships between family health histories and retirement confidence. Retirement confidence is inversely related to parental history of cancer and cardiovascular disease but not to personal health history. In contrast, retirement confidence is positively associated with both parents being deceased. As members of the public become increasingly aware of how genetics and other family factors affect intergenerational transmission of chronic diseases, it is likely that the link between family health histories and retirement confidence will intensify.

American Workerss Retirement Income Security Prospects: A Critique of Recent Assessments

Several recent assessments suggest that the majority of U.S. workers are at risk of having inadequate resources to maintain their work-life standards of living in retirement. These assessments are often based on models that fail to reflect patterns of income, consumption and savings that vary over workers’ life cycles. They extrapolate younger workers’ observed savings behavior into the future ignoring workers’ capacity to catch up after children leave home, the mortgage is paid off, and other early-life obligations have been discharged. The measurement of preretirement income and its spendable portion as an indicator of living standard in working years is often exaggerated owing to inappropriate indexing. This leads to overestimates of earnings to be replaced in retirement, underestimates of the income replacement capacity of Social Security for various segments of the workforce, and misperceptions about workers’ own responsibility for securing their retirement prospects. Although clearly some workers are not saving sufficiently to maintain their standards of living throughout retirement, the situation is less dire than a number of studies have suggested. This general conclusion still holds with a sensible consideration of health care costs.

Financial Security Scorecard: A State-by-State Analysis of Economic Pressures Facing Future Retirees

The Financial Security Scorecard: A State-by-State Analysis of Economic Pressures Facing Future Retirees finds states fall short in key areas measuring retirement readiness.This new analysis gauges the relative performance of the fifty states and the District of Columbia in three key areas: anticipated retirement income; major retirement costs like housing and healthcare; and labor market conditions for older workers.The study is designed to serve as a tool for policymakers to help identify potential areas of focus for state-based policy interventions to improve Americans’ retirement prospects.

Retirement Savings Adequacy of U.S. Workers

Whether U.S. workers are saving adequately for retirement is an important subject for employer and public policy. The optimal target levels of retirement savings are here determined through a comprehensive consumption and savings model in a life-long planning framework. The actual wealth profiles of a representative sample of U.S. households are here computed from the Survey of Consumer Finances. Comparing the model targets with the actual savings suggests that 44 percent of workers in 2010 are saving inadequately if they were planning to retire at the normal age for full Social Security benefits; alternatively, 51 percent are inadequately prepared for retirement if they were planning to retire at their desired ages, typically younger. The prevalence of savings inadequacy has worsened, by 4-5 percent of households, compared to 2007 when the prospect of retirement looked brighter at the height of the economy and market in the last decade. Asset value losses in retirement accounts during the financial crisis and the decline of DB coverage are significant explanatory factors.

Book Reviews

John A. Turner of Pension Policy Center reviews “The Transformation of the American Pension System: Was It Beneficial for Workers?” by Edward N. Wolff. The EconLit abstract of the reviewed work begins: Explores changes in the U.S. pension system between 1983 and 2009. Discusses recent trends in household wealth, 1983–2009 -- robust growth followed by collapse; the literature on retirement wealth and retirement adequacy; the slowdown in pension wealth growth in the 2000s; stagnation of retirement wealth in the 2000s; differences in retirement wealth by demographic and household characteristics; and retirement prospects. Wolff is Professor of Economics at New York University and a senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Index.