Non-Monetary Job Characteristics and Employment Transitions at Older Ages

Published: 2015
Project ID: UM15-02

Abstract

Besides compensation and financial incentives, several other work-related factors may affect retirement decisions. Yet, there exists relatively little research documenting the extent to which job characteristics, such as autonomy, skill variety, task significance and difficulty, stress and physical demands, work-hour flexibility, peer pressure and relations with co-workers influence employment transitions at older ages. We propose to study this question by exploiting the wealth of information about older workers in the Health and Retirement Study and various features of jobs in different occupations provided by the Occupation Information Network database. We will combine individuals’ perceptions about their jobs and objective job attributes from occupation-level data to identify drivers, other than monetary incentives, that may prolong workers’ attachment to the labor force. This will be valuable information for policy interventions aiming at encouraging later retirement.

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