Through my work as Co-Director of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s International Social Security (ISS) working group, I hope to help answer this question. The ISS team is a group of researchers in a dozen countries that has been working together for two decades to explore the economics of an aging workforce. For each question that we tackle, country teams conduct their own studies following a common approach and the results are combined to draw cross-country comparisons. Differences across countries in social security provisions serve as a “natural experiment” we can use to learn the program’s effects on behavior. In our current work, we document how the financial incentive to retire has changed over time due to social security reforms and explore how this relates to changes in retirement behavior.
Working Longer in the U.S. and Around the World: The Role of Social Security
Funding Source: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and U.S. Social Security Administration – A century-long trend towards earlier retirement for men in the U.S. and other developed countries came to a sudden halt in the mid-1990s. Over the past twenty years, both men and women in these countries have been working longer. During the same period, many countries enacted reforms to their social security programs, such as raising the eligibility age and cutting benefits. How much of the increase in work at older ages is due to these reforms?
Faculty: Courtney Coile
Department: Economics
Funding Source: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and U.S. Social Security Administration