August 2018

The Relationship Between Financial Planner Use and Holding a Retirement Saving Goal: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis

By Kyoung Tae Kim (University of Alabama), Tae-Young Pak (University of Alabama), Su Hyun Shin (University of Alabama) & Sherman D. Hanna (Ohio State University (OSU)) It has been well established in the literature that financial advice leads to informed decision making and improved financial outcomes. However, there is limited evidence regarding the link between financial planner use and attitudes towards retirement saving. As financial planners provide comprehensive advice for the long-term benefits of clients, their clients may become more...

Financial Fraud among Older Americans: Evidence and Implications

By Marguerite DeLiema, Martha Deevy, Annamaria Lusardi, Olivia S. Mitchell The consequences of poor financial capability at older ages are serious and include making mistakes with credit, spending retirement assets too quickly, and being defrauded by financial predators. Because older persons are at or past the peak of their wealth accumulation, they are often the targets of fraud. Our project analyzes a module we developed and fielded in the 2016 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Using this dataset, we evaluate...

Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Working Longer

By Courtney Coile This is the introduction and summary to the eighth phase of an ongoing project on Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World. This project, which compares the experiences of a dozen developed countries, was launched in the mid 1990s following decades of decline in the labor force participation rate of older men. The first several phases of the project document that social security program provisions can create powerful incentives for retirement that are strongly correlated with...

The Power of Working Longer

By Gila Bronshtein This paper compares the relative strengths of working longer vs. saving more in terms of increasing a household’s affordable, sustainable standard of living in retirement. Both stylized households and actual households from the Health and Retirement Study are examined. We assume that workers commence Social Security benefits when they retire. The basic result is that delaying retirement by 3-6 months has the same impact on the retirement standard of living as saving an additional one-percentage point of...

Stealing To The Youth And Giving To The Old? : Intergenerational Inequalities And Political Dynamics In The Italian Pension System

By Giulio Del Balzo "The contemporary welfare state in capitalist democracies is largely a welfare state for the elderly” (Myles, 1984) Filicide is a recurrent event in ancient mythology, as well as in nature. Just as Kronos devoured his sons, fearing that they would dispossess him from the Gods’ throne, so many animal species, like lions, usually kill their puppies, since they perceive their children as potential threats to their consolidated interests and well-being. So, as in nature and myths, filicide...

Working Beyond 65 in Ireland

By Anne Nolan (Options Ltd) & Alan Barrett (Economic and Social Research Institute; IZA Institute of Labor Economics) Extending working lives is often proposed as one route through which the costs associated with population ageing can be managed. In that context, understanding who currently works for longer can help policymakers to design policies to facilitate longer working. In particular, it is important to know if longer working is a choice or a necessity, where necessity arises from a lack of...

July 2018

Aging in America: A Cultural History

By Lawrence R Samuel Aging is a preoccupation shared by beauty bloggers, serious journalists, scientists, doctors, celebrities--arguably all of adult America, given the pervasiveness of the crusade against it in popular culture and the media. We take our youth-oriented culture as a given but, as Lawrence R. Samuel argues, this was not always the case. Old age was revered in early America, in part because it was so rare. Indeed, it was not until the 1960s, according to Samuel, that...

The Changing Face of Debt and Financial Fragility at Older Ages

By Annamaria Lusardi, Olivia S. Mitchell & Noemi Oggero We investigate changes in older individuals' financial fragility as they stand on the verge of retirement. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we compare how debt has changed for successive cohorts of people age 56–61. Our analysis shows that recent older Americans close to retirement hold more debt, and hence face greater financial insecurity, than earlier generations. This is primarily due to having bought more expensive homes with...

June 2018

Questioning Market Aversion in Gender Equality Strategies: Designing Legal Mechanisms for the Promotion of Gender Equality in the Family and the Market

By Hila Shamir (Tel Aviv University - Buchmann Faculty of Law),Tsilly Dagan (Bar Ilan University) & Ayelet Carmeli (Tel Aviv University) Post-industrial economies are at a crossroad. On the one hand countries are dealing with the crisis of unemployment and underemployment, developing strategies to increase labor market participation of all adults, and increase productivity. On the other hand, the same countries are responding to demographic concerns regarding an aging population and decreased birth ratios. These concerns, coupled with a growing...

Later Pension, Poorer Health? Evidence from the New State Pension Age in the UK

By Ludovico Carrino (King's College London; Ca Foscari University of Venice - Dipartimento di Economia), Karen Glaser (University of London - Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine (SSHM)) & Mauricio Avendano (King's College London) This paper examines the health impact of UK pension reforms that increased women’s State Pension age for up to six years since 2010. Exploiting an 11% increase in employment caused by the reforms, we show that rising the State Pension age reduces physical and mental...