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Title: Employment and Retirement Among Older Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2021
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Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic dealt an unprecedented shock to older workers and led to a sharp increase in the share of U.S. adults who are retired. This paper uses Current Population Survey data to explore the distribution and determinants of employment loss and retirement among older workers during the pandemic. Employment declines among older workers were greatest for low earners, women, non-whites and non-college-educated workers. By contrast, increased transitions to retirement occurred across demographic groups and concentrated in both the lowest-and highest-earning quar-tiles. Job characteristics that best predicted increased pandemic retirement transitions were employment in high-contact occupations and part-time work schedules. I estimate that part-time workers made up roughly 70% of the increase in net year-to-year employment-to-retirement transitions during the first year of the pandemic. This finding has implications for recent Social Security claiming behavior and for the possible persistence of the pandemic retirement boom.
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Authors: Davis, Owen
Series Title: SCEPA Working Paper Series
Publication Number: 6
Institution: Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA)
Pages: 1-57
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Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Aging and Retirement, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Poverty and Welfare
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