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  5. Older Workers, Job Search, and Retirement
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Older Workers, Job Search, and Retirement

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 5, 2024 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM (CST)

Grand Hyatt, Crockett A/B
Hosted By: Labor and Employment Relations Association
  • Chair: Joelle Saad-Lessler, Stevens Institute of Technology

Understanding Trends in the Retirement Preparedness of Black and Hispanic Households in the U.S.

Edward Nathan Wolff
,
New York University

Abstract

Developments in the Retirement Security of Black and Hispanic Households in the US: A Setback for Black Americans but Continued Progress for Hispanics
Edward N. Wolff
Abstract. Retirement income security refers to the ability of households to provide an adequate stream of income during the period of their retirement from the labor force. Expected retirement income is based of four components: (i) standard non-pension wealth holdings, (ii) defined contribution pension holdings, (iii) expected defined benefit pension entitlements, and (iv) expected Social Security benefits. The first two components are converted into an annuity. Calculations are based on the Survey of Consumer Finances. Black and Hispanic households both made remarkable progress in terms of mean and median retirement income, poverty reduction, and replacement rates from 1989 to 2007. However, from 2007 to 2019, fortunes reversed for Black households, with median retirement income declining, the poverty rate rising, and replacement rates falling, though mean retirement income rose. Hispanics also experienced a setback in mean retirement income but continued progress in median retirement income, replacement rates and poverty reduction.

Older Workers in the Unemployment Insurance System

Peter Mannino
,
University of California-Los Angeles
Till von Wachter
,
University of California-Los Angeles

Abstract

Older unemployed workers can face challenges in the labor market, but may be able to rely on savings to search longer for better fitting jobs than younger workers. These underlying differences between older and younger workers may impact how these groups interact with the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system with important implications for the design of UI policies. This paper examines the different labor supply responses of older and younger workers to UI benefit generosity using a regression kink design framework with administrative data from California. We find that UI durations and nonemployment durations increase less for older workers than younger workers. We examine the mechanism behind these results and introduce a series of stylized facts that are consistent with an explanation that barriers in the labor market are driving the lower labor supply response of older workers. We conclude with a discussion of the UI policy implications of our findings.

The Tangible Value of Informal Support for America's Aging Population

Joelle Saad-Lessler
,
Stevens Institute of Technology
Karen Richman
,
University of Notre Dame

Abstract

Help from extended family members and friends is a valuable but overlooked source of informal support for America's aging population. This study proposes thinking about lifetime wealth as the sum of both formal and informal assets. Using an innovative methodology, we analyze data on both formal and informal assets from the 2014 and 2018 Surveys of Income and Program Participation. We find that up to 44% of the total income of recipients of informal support ages 67 and older comes from family and friends. Informal monetary and in-kind exchanges are even more important for near-retirees; up to two thirds of these recipients reach their retirement savings targets compared to forty percent of those who do not receive informal support. Meanwhile, those who provide informal support to family and friends do not suffer any significant reduction in their own retirement security. We conclude that people are more secure at the end of their working lives if they participate in the reciprocal exchange of informal support than if they go it alone. We suggest that scholarship on retirement security account for the value of informal support between social network members. Not doing so can lead to the mismeasurement of retirement readiness.

City Level, Industry Specialization and Older Migrant Workers in China

Haobin Fan
,
Shanghai Academy of Social Science
Ting Zhang
,
University of Baltimore

Abstract

Older workers participate in the labor market as China entering the advanced stage of
aging society. Although older migrant workers constitute a significant part of urban
inflows, their migration destination cities and job search outcomes have received very
little attention in the existed studies. This paper combines the literature on older migration
for labor participation and urban agglomeration to study the role of city level
and industry specialization in the older migrant workers’ job searching results. The
finding shows that relative to the most developed high-tier cities, such as metropolitan
areas Shanghai and provincial capital cities like Chengdu, the low-tier cities like
moderately and lowly developed cities offer higher employment probability for older
migrant workers. Industry specialization offers further interpretation for this finding.
Construction sector as the second largest sector in terms of employment in the low-tier
cities generates a dense labor market that improves the job-finding rate. The willingness
of real estate developers to pay more for workers in the low-level cities than in the
high-level cities matches the wage preference of older migrant workers.

Discussant(s)
Brian Asquith
,
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
Jose Fernandez
,
University of Louisville
JEL Classifications
  • J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor
  • J1 - Demographic Economics