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Why Do Boomers Plan to Work Longer?

¹ Urban Institute, Income and Benefits Policy Center, Washington, DC.
² Department of Economics and School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Address correspondence to Gordon B. T. Mermin, Income and Benefits Policy Center, Urban Institute, 2100 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20037. E-mail: gmermin{at}ui.urban.org

	Abstract

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Objectives. Recent changes in retirement trends and patterns have raised questions about the likely retirement behavior of baby boomers, the large cohort born between 1946 and 1964. This study examined recent changes in retirement expectations and the factors that drove them.

Methods. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, the analysis compared self-reported probabilities of working full time past ages 62 and 65 among workers aged 51 to 56 in 1992 and 2004. The study modeled retirement expectations for both generations and used the estimated regression coefficients to identify the forces that accounted for generational differences.

Results. Between 1992 and 2004, the mean self-reported probability of working full time past age 65 among workers aged 51 to 56 increased from 27% to 33%. Lower rates of retiree health insurance offers from employers, higher levels of educational attainment, and lower rates of defined benefit pension coverage accounted for most of the growth.

Discussion. Given the continued erosion in employer-sponsored retiree health benefits and defined benefit pension plans, boomers will likely remain at work longer than members of the previous generation. Lengthier careers will likely promote economic growth, increase government revenue, and improve individual financial security at older ages.

THE age at which older adults retire affects economic well-being in later life and the relative size of the dependent population. By working longer, people can accumulate more Social Security wealth, employer-sponsored pension wealth, and other savings, while reducing the number of years over which their retirement wealth must finance consumption needs. Encouraging older people to work longer would also increase the total production of goods and services, enhancing living standards and raising government revenues that fund services for both the young and old.

Recent changes in retirement trends and patterns have raised questions about the likely retirement behavior of baby boomers, the large cohort born between 1946 and 1964. Average retirement ages for men declined steadily throughout most of the past century, but this trend appears to have ended about 20 years ago and may have now reversed. Many older people now move from full-time work in career jobs to part-time work in jobs that serve as bridges to retirement, rather than leaving the labor force directly from career employment. Because the reasons behind these changes are not well understood, researchers do not know the extent to which boomers will continue the recent trend toward later retirement. Better information is needed on the boomers' retirement expectations to assess how quickly they will leave the labor force and the likely economic and social impact.

This study examined recent changes in retirement expectations and the factors that may have accounted for differences over time. Using nationally representative data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we compared self-reported probabilities of working full time past ages 62 and 65 for 51- to 56-year-old workers in 1992 and 2004. The study modeled retirement expectations for both generations to examine the key factors influencing anticipated labor supply at older ages and then used the estimated regression coefficients to identify the forces that appeared to drive generational differences in retirement expectations.

Consequences of Retirement Decisions
Baby boomers' retirement decisions will have important implications for public and private retirement systems, the economy, and boomers' own financial security. The first of the boomers will reach the Social Security early eligibility age in 2008, and many boomers will leave the labor force in the following decades. In fact, Social Security actuaries predict the number of workers per retiree will decrease from 3.3 to 2.2 over the next 25 years, and the Social Security system will begin to run a deficit in 2017, becoming insolvent by 2040 (Social Security Trustees, 2006). Medicare already pays more in benefits than it collects in taxes and will deplete its Hospital Insurance trust fund by 2017, according to current projections (Medicare Trustees, 2006). The same demographic challenges confront the employer-sponsored defined benefit (DB) pension system. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (2005) estimated that the private defined pension plans it insures are underfunded by $650 billion, and the National Association of State Retirement Administrators (2006) estimated state and local pension plans are underfunded by $337 billion.

The retirement of the baby boomers is also likely to significantly reduce labor force growth. Our calculations from Bureau of Labor Statistics projections (Toosi, 2002) show that the labor force will grow by only 0.7% per year over the next two decades, down from 1.4% per year over the previous 20 years. The slowdown in the average annual growth rate will be even more striking for the prime-age labor force (aged 25 to 54), falling from 2.1% over the past two decades to just 0.3% for the next two decades. Some analysts have suggested that slow labor force growth could result in worker shortages or skill gaps that impede economic progress (Aspen Institute, 2003; Nyce & Schieber, 2005), although others are skeptical (Cappelli, 2005).

In addition to economy-wide impacts, the boomers' retirement decisions will affect their own retirement security. Those who delay retirement avoid early retirement reductions to their Social Security and DB pension benefits, accumulate more Social Security and pension credits and other savings, and reduce the number of retirement years that they must fund. By working until age 67 instead of retiring at age 62, for example, a typical worker can gain about $10,000 in annual income at age 75, net of federal income taxes and health insurance premiums (Butrica, Johnson, Smith, & Steuerle, 2005).

Retirement Trends
Retirement ages declined steadily for men throughout most of the 20th century. In 1870, 84% of men aged 65 and older participated in the labor force (Costa, 1998). However, the participation rate fell to 46% by 1950 and to 16% in 1990. Participation rates for women aged 65 and older declined only slightly between 1950 and 1990 as the movement of women into the labor force after World War II offset the general trend toward earlier retirement (Toosi, 2002).

Recent economic, social, and demographic trends suggest that boomers may work longer than the previous generation. Improved health and declines in physical job demands leave older people better able to work today than in the past (National Center for Health Statistics, 2006; Steuerle, Spiro, & Johnson, 1999). Recent Social Security changes have increased work incentives at older ages. The normal retirement age for full Social Security benefits recently increased from 65 to 66 and will reach 67 for those born after 1959. Delayed retirement credits have been raised to better compensate retirees who take up benefits after the normal retirement age. And Congress repealed the earnings test, which reduces Social Security benefits for employed recipients who earn more than a limited amount, for beneficiaries past the normal retirement age.

Changes in employer-provided pension and retiree health benefits are also likely to encourage boomers to remain at work. Traditional DB pensions, which provide workers with lifetime retirement annuities usually based on years of service and earnings near the end of the career, tend to discourage work at older ages (Stock & Wise, 1990). They often provide substantial subsidies for early retirement and penalize workers who remain on the job past the plan's normal retirement age, because workers who delay retirement by a month forfeit a month of benefits.

Over the past 30 years, however, employers have been shifting from traditional DB pensions to defined contribution (DC) plans that do not encourage early retirement (Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration, 1998). Employers typically make specified contributions into individual DC accounts that workers access at retirement, generally as lump sum payments. Because contributions continue as long as plan participants remain employed and workers with a given account balance can receive the same lifetime benefit regardless of when they choose to begin collecting, DC plans do not generally penalize work at older ages. As a result, people in DC plans tend to work about 2 years longer than DB participants (Friedberg & Webb, 2005), and the shift to DC plans should increase older Americans' labor supply.

The erosion in employer-provided retiree health benefits is also likely to limit early retirement. Retiree health insurance, which pays health expenses for early retirees who have not reached the Medicare eligibility age of 65, discourages work by reducing retirement costs that arise from the loss of employer health benefits. Workers offered retiree health benefits by their employers retire earlier than workers who lose their health benefits (Johnson, Davidoff, & Perese, 2003; Rogowski & Karoly, 2000). However, rising health care costs and the introduction of an accounting rule in 1993 requiring employers to recognize on their balance sheets the full liability of future retiree health costs have led many employers to terminate their retiree health plans. In 2005, only 33% of employers with more than 200 employees offered retiree health benefits, down from 68% in 1988 (Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research Educational Trust, 2005).

Perhaps in response to these various trends, older adults are now working longer than they did about 20 years ago. Between 1985 and 2005, the share of men in the labor force increased from 46% to 53% at ages 62 to 64 and from 24% to 34% at ages 65 to 69 (Federal Interagency Forum on Aging Related Statistics, 2006). Over the same period, women's labor force participation rates rose from 29% to 40% at ages 62 to 64 and from 14% to 24% at ages 65 to 69.

Several surveys have also suggested that boomers intend to work into old age. For example, 68% of older workers in one recent poll said they intended to work in retirement (AARP, 2003). Another AARP poll found that 38% of older workers want to phase gradually into retirement instead of leaving the labor force altogether (AARP, 2005). A recent MetLife survey found that boomers are increasingly concerned about their ability to afford an early retirement (MetLife Mature Market Institute, 2005).

A closer examination of retirement expectations for the leading edge of the baby boom cohort and the factors influencing those expectations may shed some light on how quickly the generation will exit the labor force.

	METHODS

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This study compared the retirement expectations of workers aged 51 to 56 born between 1948 and 1953 (early boomers) to those of workers in the same age group born 12 years earlier, between 1936 and 1941 (the prewar generation). Expectations appear to be reliable predictors of actual retirement behavior (Dominitz, 1996). We first compared retirement expectations and demographic and economic characteristics for each generation. Then we modeled expectations for both generations to examine the key factors influencing anticipated labor force exits. Finally, we used the estimated regression coefficients and differences in characteristics to identify the forces that appear to drive generational differences in retirement expectations.

Data
Our data came from the HRS, a national survey of Americans aged 51 and older conducted by the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center for the National Institute on Aging. The survey collects detailed information on retirement expectations, health status, employment, income, assets, employee benefits, and other topics. It oversampled African Americans and Hispanics but includes sample weights so that estimates represent the underlying national population. Our sample consisted of all respondents aged 51 to 56 working for pay in 1992 (from the prewar generation) and all workers in the same age group in 2004 (from the early boomers). In addition to those working for others, we included the self-employed, who make up a significant proportion of the workforce, particularly at older ages. After we dropped 52 observations with missing values, our sample included 3,963 workers in 1992; after we dropped 362 such observations, our sample included 2,145 workers in 2004.

We used the self-reported probability of working full time past typical retirement ages as our measure of retirement expectations. The survey asked respondents working for pay the following question: "Thinking about work generally and not just your present job, what do you think are the chances that you will be working full-time after you reach age 62?" The survey asked the same question about work past age 65. The survey also asked respondents when they expected to "retire," but we did not use this measure because the question changed over time and many respondents did not answer.

Conceptual Framework and Model Specification
We used ordinary least squares to model the subjective probabilities of working full time past ages 62 and 65. We grounded our analysis in a conceptual framework that assumed that rational workers weigh the costs and benefits of continued employment when making retirement decisions. Consistent with other economics models, we hypothesized that factors that increase work benefits would lead to later retirements, whereas factors that raise work costs would lead to earlier retirements (Quinn, Burkhauser, & Myers 1990). Model regressors that tend to reduce the benefits of working at older ages or raise costs (and hence lower the chances of working past normal retirement ages) included DB pension coverage, retiree health benefit offers, poor health, household income net of own earnings, and household wealth. As noted earlier, DB pensions generally penalize work because workers forfeit benefits if they delay retirement past the plan's retirement age. Retiree health benefits reduce retirement costs that stem from the loss of employer health benefits, encouraging people to retire early. Poor health typically promotes retirement by making work more difficult and reducing workers' earnings potential (Bound, Schoenbaum, Stinebricker, & Waidmann, 1998; McGarry, 2004). Wealthy workers and those who derive income from sources other than employment face relatively low retirement costs, all else being equal, because they can better maintain preretirement consumption levels than people with fewer financial resources.

Factors in the model that increase work returns or reduce work costs included DC pension coverage, employer-sponsored health insurance coverage, earnings, self-employment, education, and the self-reported probability of surviving to age 75. The cost of working is generally lower for self-employed workers, who typically enjoy more workplace flexibility than wage and salary workers. Well-educated workers typically face fewer physical job demands and more job flexibility than those with less education. High survival probabilities indicate good health and a relatively long period over which retirement wealth must be spread, increasing the cost of retiring early. The models also controlled for gender, marital status, race and ethnicity, and foreign birth.

Although most measures in our model were consistent over time, work limitations and retiree health insurance questions differed in 1992 and 2004. We measured poor health status by the presence of a health problem that limited work ability. In 2004, for the first time, the survey did not ask respondents who reported work limitations in the previous interview whether they continued to experience problems. We assumed that work limitations reported in 2002 continued into 2004. Because work limitations sometimes disappear, our assumption may have overstated the prevalence of 2004 work limitations (although only 25% of our 2004 sample of workers aged 51 to 56 were interviewed in 2002). The retiree health insurance question also changed. In 1992, the HRS asked respondents whether their employers had "any health insurance plan available to retirees" and whether the plan could cover spouses. In 1996 and later years, it asked whether respondents could continue their employer insurance coverage up to age 65 if they left the employer at the time of the interview, and whether spouses could be covered. The wording change could have affected estimated trends.

We expressed all financial amounts in constant 2004 dollars, adjusted by the change in the consumer price index. Household wealth consisted of financial assets (including DC and individual retirement account balances), home equity, and other real assets. We accounted for differences in family size by dividing married respondents' household wealth and household income net of own earnings by 1.62, the midpoint of the range of household equivalence scales recommended by the National Academy of Science (Citro & Michael, 1995).

The final stage of the analysis used the regression coefficients and changes in characteristics between 1992 and 2004 to identify the major factors explaining the trend in retirement expectations. Following Oaxaca (1973), we expressed the difference between the two birth cohorts in the self-reported probability of working past the typical retirement age as follows:

or

where _i is the vector of mean explanatory variables for year i (i = 1992, 2004) and β_i is the vector of regression coefficients for year i. The first term in Equations 1 and 2 represents the portion of the difference in the self-reported probability that can be attributed to differences in observed characteristics between the cohorts, and the second term represents the unexplained portion of the difference. We focused on the first term to identify the major demographic and economic trends that explained changes in expectations. Because the portion of the generational gap accounted for by changes over time in particular characteristics may vary depending on whether prewar generation coefficients or early boomer coefficients are used, we report results for both equations. We used weighted values for the demographic and economic characteristics and coefficients from weighted regressions so that our results generalize to the population of older American workers.

	RESULTS

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Table 1 reports demographic and economic characteristics for workers aged 51 to 56 in 1992 and 2004. The comparisons revealed rapid changes in the older workforce over the 12-year period. Perhaps most striking was the sharp increase in educational attainment. For example, 37% of early boomers had graduated from college, compared with only 22% of the prewar generation. Whereas about 22% of the prewar generation had failed to complete high school, all but 10% of early boomers had obtained their high school degrees.

Traditional employer-sponsored pension plans and retiree health benefits declined substantially over the period. Between 1992 and 2004, the share of workers aged 51 to 56 with DB pension coverage on the current job fell from about 40% to 31%, while the share with DC plan coverage increased from about 34% to 46%. The portion of workers in their early and mid 50s with no pension coverage on the current job fell by about 3 percentage points over the period, to 39%. Although the prevalence of health insurance coverage on the job was similar for each generation, only about 39% of employed early boomers reported that their employers offered health benefits to retirees, down from about 56% for the prewar generation.

The prevalence of work limitations among older workers did not fall over the period. In 2004, about 10% of workers aged 51 to 56 reported work limitations, up from 9% in 1992. Dropping from the 2004 sample respondents interviewed in 2002—whom we assumed had work limitations in 2004 if they reported problems in 2002—reduced the share of workers with work limitations to about the same level as in 1992. The lack of health improvement over time did not appear to result from the movement of disabled workers into the labor force. Among all HRS respondents aged 51 to 56, regardless of employment status, 18% reported work limitations in 1992, compared with 19% in 2004 (among those not interviewed in 2002); the difference was not statistically significant. Consistent with the lack of improvement in work limitations, the self-reported probability of surviving to age 75 did not change significantly over time. The persistence of health problems may have been related to rising diabetes and obesity rates among older Americans (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2005, 2006).

The early boomers reported more financial resources than the prewar generation. Between 1992 and 2004 mean real earnings increased from about $43,000 to $57,000, mean real other household income increased from about $24,000 to $32,000, and mean real household wealth increased from $204,000 to $284,000. Much of these gains, however, were concentrated near the top of the distribution, as median resources increased more slowly. Median real earnings grew from $33,000 to $41,000, median real other income grew from $15,000 to $18,000, and median real wealth grew from $97,000 to $119,000.

Table 2 shows mean self-reported probabilities of working full time past age 62—the first year people can start receiving Social Security retired worker benefits—for workers aged 51 to 56 in 1992 and 2004. Work expectations increased significantly over the period, with early boomers reporting a 51% chance of full-time work after age 62, compared with 47% for the prewar generation. Except for Hispanics, immigrants, and those who did not complete high school, the probability of working past age 62 increased for all groups we examined, although the differences were not always statistically significant. The increase was especially striking for workers with DC plans, for whom work probabilities rose from 45% in 1992 to 52% in 2004.

Table 3 compares mean self-reported probabilities of working full time past age 65 for workers aged 51 to 56 in 1992 and 2004. The mean probability rose about 6 percentage points over the period, from about 27% to about 33%, nearly double the increase in the mean probability of working full time past age 62. In relative terms, work expectations after age 65 were about 23% higher for the early boomers than for the prewar generation. Except for foreign-born adults, work expectations increased for all of the groups we examined, and the increases were statistically significant for all groups except Hispanics, those without pension coverage or employer retiree health benefits, and the self-employed.

Table 5 reports results from weighted ordinary least squares regressions of the self-reported probability of working past age 65 in 1992 and 2004. The estimates were quite similar to those reported in Table 4 for the probability of working past age 62. Self-employment exerted an even larger impact on the expectation of working past age 65 than age 62, increasing the probability by about 13 percentage points. However, employer health insurance coverage for workers did not significantly increase work expectations after age 65, probably because Medicare benefits begin at 65. Earnings were also insignificant predictors of work expectations past age 65.

	DISCUSSION

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The erosion of employer retiree health benefits, which explains as much as half of the increase in work expectations, will likely persist. Although the decline in retiree health insurance offers occurred mostly in the late 1980s and early 1990s as new accounting regulations took hold, rising health care costs will likely lead to further coverage declines (Government Accountability Office, 2001). Between 2003 and 2004, for example, the cost to large employers of providing retiree health insurance increased by 13% (McArdle, Atchison, Yamamoto, Kitchman, & Neuman, 2004). The aging of the workforce will further pressure employers who provide retiree health insurance. Unlike rules governing DB pension plans, federal law does not force employers to set aside funds for future retiree health benefits or prevent them from cutting promised benefits. Even if coverage rates do not decline further, employers are likely to shift costs to retirees. In 2005, 85% of large employers offering retiree health benefits said they were likely to increase retiree contributions in the coming year, and 18% said were likely to make retirees pay the entire premium (McArdle et al., 2004).

The trend away from DB pensions, which explains as much as 23% of the increase in work expectations, shows no signs of abating. For example, Watson Wyatt (2006) found that many employers terminated or froze their DB pension plans between 2004 and 2006, and 15% of employers surveyed by Hewitt Associates (2006) reported that they were likely to close their plans to new employees in 2006.

Additionally, a recent court decision and federal legislation will likely encourage employers to convert their traditional DB pension plans to cash balance plans that do not generally penalize work at older ages. Employers offering cash balance plans, which combine elements of DC and traditional DB plans, regularly set aside a given percentage of salary for each employee and credit interest on these contributions. Unlike traditional DB plans, cash balance plans are work neutral because additional plan contributions increase workers' account balances. Although many employers switched to cash balance plans during the 1990s, recent legal challenges put future conversions on hold. In August 2006, however, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that cash balance plans do not violate age discrimination rules, and President George W. Bush signed the Pension Protection Act of 2006, declaring that cash balance plans are not age discriminatory.

Demographic trends that encourage work at older ages are also likely to continue. The share of young adults with college degrees reached an all time high in 2003 but declined in the late 1970s and early 1980s before increasing in the 1990s (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). As a result, the share of workers approaching retirement with a college education will likely stagnate over the coming decade but then rise in later years. Declining marriage rates will likely raise for the foreseeable future the share of workers approaching retirement who are single (Smith & Toder, 2005). The movement of women into the labor force, which reduced work expectations between 1992 and 2004, is likely to slow in the future. Between 1984 and 2004, labor force participation rates for women aged 45 to 54 increased from 62% to 77%, but they will increase to only 78% by 2014, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics projections (Toosi, 2005). However, rising real incomes and wealth will somewhat reduce employment at older ages.

Taken together, these trends and our HRS analysis suggest that the boomers will remain at work longer than the previous generation. The recent uptick in average retirement ages appears to be the leading edge of a new long-term trend. Lengthier careers will likely promote economic growth, increase government revenue, and improve individual financial security at older ages.

	Acknowledgments

 
The research reported herein was supported by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College pursuant to a grant from the U.S. Social Security Administration funded as part of the Retirement Research Consortium. The opinions and conclusions are solely our own and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policy of the Social Security Administration, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, or the Urban Institute, its boards, or its funders.

	Footnotes

 
Decision Editor: Kenneth F. Ferraro, PhD

Received for publication October 26, 2006. Accepted for publication March 9, 2007.

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