Work and Retirement: A Longitudinal Study of Men

This volume on actual retirement practices utilizes a unique body of data—the National Longitudinal Surveys—about a representative sample of 3500 male workers, who were between 45 and 59 years of age when the survey began in 1966 and between 55 and 69 (if they survived) when the latest data became available in 1976. Blacks and whites are distinguished in the cohort, with blacks being oversampled in order to permit statistically reliable racial comparisons.

The fact that the data were collected through repeated interviews with the same individuals over a ten-year period allows certain kinds of analysis that would not otherwise be possible. For example, attitudes and intentions reported by the men prior to retiring afford insight into the reasons for their subsequent retirement that after-the-fact interviews alone would not necessarily provide.

The book offers a host of significant findings based on a statistical analysis of the longitudinal data. Among them: that there is a growing trend toward early retirement (before 65), in spite of the perceived social and economic pressures to work beyond that traditional retirement age; that nevertheless two-thirds of the men remained employed in 1976 and that three out of five of these reported that they were "very satisfied" with their jobs in both 1966 and 1976; that the disparity in labor force participation rates between blacks and whites would disappear if wage rates for equally qualified blacks and whites were to be equalized.

The opening chapter introduces the sample and the database. Subsequent chapters take up changes over the studied decade in black-white labor market opportunities, the incidence and impact of job loss, the increasing rate of health impairment in the cohort, black-white differences in the labor force participation of older males, the retirement experience, and family adjustments to poor health and mortality.

The methodological and statistical formulations on which the study is based are developed in appendixes. A glossary is also provided.