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Title: What Explains the Widening Gap in Retirement Ages by Education?
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2018
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Abstract: Over the last three decades, the average retirement age has increased by about three years, to 64.6 for men and 62.3 for women.1 But this trend is not uniform across socioeconomic groups: for example, high school graduates are retiring just a bit later than in the 1990s, leading to a wide gap between them and college graduates. This brief reviews studies by the U.S. Social Security Administration’s Retirement Research Consortium (RRC) and others that examine several potential causes of the unequal increases in retirement ages by education. The discussion proceeds as follows. The frst section quantifes the growing gap in average retirement ages by education. The second section discusses four reasons why the gap may have widened: 1) growing inequality in health and longevity; 2) variations in labor market conditions; 3) the diferential impact of Social Security policy changes; and 4) disimilarities in marital status that afect the joint retirement decision. The fnal section concludes that these factors have increased retirement ages much more for college graduates than for those with less education. This latter group is thus more likely to retire early, putting them at greater risk of inadequate incomes and heavier reliance on the social safety net.
Url: http://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IB_18-10.pdf
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Authors: Rutledge, Matthew, S
Publisher: Center for Retirement Research
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Aging and Retirement, Labor Force and Occupational Structure
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