UM07-14: Work and retirement choices of men: the impact of social security rules in Chile
Researchers
Abstract
As the labor force ages it becomes increasingly important to analyze whether people will work longer if they live longer, and how to encourage this behavior. This will increase the productive capacity of the economy and improve the finances of social security systems. The purpose of this project is to study factors that have shaped the age of pensioning and withdrawal of women from the labor force in Chile under its new social security system, and to draw out the implications for policy in the US. The decisions of women may be quite different from and more complex than that of men because they have an earlier legal retirement age but a greater longevity, they are disproportionate recipients of state subsidies from the minimum pension guarantee, their choices are likely to depend more strongly on marital status and to be heavily influenced by their husbands’ situation, and the rules regarding the interaction of survivors benefits and own pension have changed in the new system. This project follows up on our earlier work on the impact of the Chilean reform on male retirement choices and on the impact of the reform on gender differentials in retirement income. We plan to use a new retrospective data set collected in 2002, supplemented by data collected in 2004 that turns it into a panel, which recently became available in Chile.