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Expectations and Realization of Joint Retirement Among Dual-Worker Couples

Year: 2008

Type: article

Abstract: Using data from the first seven waves of the Health and Retirement Study (1992 to 2004), the authors examined the extent to which joint retirement expectations were realized, the role of couple-level agreement in facilitating joint retirement, whether husbands' or wives' expectations were more likely to be realized in cases of disagreement, and factors associated with the realization of expectations. The results indicate that couples expecting joint retirement were over three times more likely to retire jointly than couples in which neither spouse expected to do so. However, the probability of joint retirement did not differ between couples in which both spouses expected to retire jointly and those in which only one spouse expected to do so. Wives' and husbands' expectations were equally strong predictors of joint retirement, and retirement age, health, spouses' relative earnings, and discussions of retirement were related to the likelihood of realizing joint retirement expectations.

Source: Research on Aging

DOI: 10.1177/0164027508328308

Authors: Jeong-Hwa Ho, James M. Raymo

Institution: University of Wisconsin–Madison

Language: English

Topic: Retirement, Disability, and Employment

Subfield: Demography

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institute on Aging, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: Center for Demography and Ecology, Center for Demography of Health and Aging