Redefining Retirement

As the leading edge of the "Baby Boom" generation attains age 60, members of this unusually large cohort born 1946-66 are poised to redefine retirement--just as they have restructured educational, housing, and labor markets in prior days. Looking ahead, their numbers and energy are sure to have a major impact on national pensions, healthcare, and social safety nets. Contributors to this volume note that "Boomers" will be better off than their predecessors in many ways, having benefited from the long run-up in housing prices, dramatic improvements in healthcare, and the expanding economy. On the other hand, the generation's sheer size will surely squeeze resources and require new approaches to retirement risk management.

This book offers readers an invaluable and first book-length study of Boomers as they march into retirement. As such, it represents an invaluable addition to the Pension Research Council/Oxford University Press series. It will be especially useful for scholars and policymakers seeking to understand retirement preparedness, to actuaries and tax specialists concerned with retirement system regulation, and to plan sponsors interested in the determinants of work and retirement at older ages.

Brigitte Madrian is Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management in the Aetna Chair at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Olivia S. Mitchell is International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor of Insurance and Risk Management, the Executive Director of
the Pension Research Council, and the Director of the Boettner Center on Pensions and Retirement Research at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Beth Soldo is a Distinguished Senior Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania.