In this article, the authors assess the impact on male employees’ labor market outcomes of firms offering a special form of phased retirement. The goal of the program is to smooth the transition from work to retirement and to decrease the costs of public pension and unemployment insurance schemes by increasing the employment of elderly workers. Using a unique linked employer-employee data set, the authors examine whether male employees spend more time in employment and less time in unemployment or inactivity after the introduction of the program. Results suggest that phased retirement options offered by firms can help to reduce some of the public costs of low labor force attachment of elderly workers, mainly by reducing exits through unemployment and by increasing employment and earnings. Under relatively good labor market conditions, they may also encourage a small share of workers to exit the labor market earlier.
AbadieAlbertoImbensGuido W.2006. Large sample properties of matching estimators for average treatment effects. Econometrica74: 235–67.
2.
AbadieAlbertoImbensGuido W.2008. On the failure of the bootstrap for matching estimators. Econometrica76: 1537–57.
3.
AbrahamKatharine G.HousemanSusan N.2004. Work and retirement plans among older Americans. Employment Research11(4): 1–4.
4.
BiewenMartinFitzenbergerBerndOsikominuAderonkePaulMarie. 2014. The effectiveness of public-sponsored training revisited: The importance of data and methodological choices. Journal of Labor Economics32:837–97.
5.
BMAS. 2012. Alterssicherung in Deutschland: Zusammenfassender Bericht. Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, Forschungsbericht 431/Z. Official report of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Issues.
6.
Börsch-SupanAxelJürgesHendrik. 2011. Disability, pension reform and early retirement in Germany. NBER Working Paper No. 17079. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
7.
Börsch-SupanAxelWilkeChristina B.2004. The German pension system: How it was, how it will be. NBER Working Paper No. 10525. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
8.
BrussigMartinKnuthMatthiasWojtkowskiSascha. 2009. Altersübergangs-Report, 2009-02. Univeristät Duisburg-Essen: Institut Arbeit und Qualifikation.
9.
DehejiaRajeev H.WahbaSadek. 2002. Propensity-score-matching methods for nonexperimental causal studies. Review of Economics and Statistics84: 151–61.
10.
DragoRobertWoodenMarkBlackDavid. 2009. Who wants and gets flexibility? Changing work hours preferences and life events. Industrial and Labor Relations Review62: 394–414.
11.
EvenWilliam E.MacphersonDavid A.2004. Do pensions impede phased retirement? IZA Discussion Paper No. 1353, Bonn.
GroggerJeffreyWunschConny. 2013. Unemployment insurance and departures from employment: Evidence from a German reform. Working Paper. Department of Economics, VU University Amsterdam.
15.
GustmanAlan L.SteinmeierThomas L.1984. Partial retirement and the analysis of retirement behavior. Industrial and Labor Relations Review37: 403–15.
16.
HaiderStevenLoughranDavid. 2001. Elderly labor supply: Work or play? Boston College CRR Working Paper No. 2001-04, Boston.
17.
HonigMarjorieHanochGiora. 1985. Partial retirement as a separate mode of retirement behavior. Journal of Human Resources20: 21–46.
18.
HuberMartinLechnerMichaelWunschConny. 2013. The performance of estimators based on the propensity score. Journal of Econometrics175: 1–21.
19.
HurdMichaelMcGarryKathleen. 1993. The relationship between job characteristics and retirement. NBER Working Paper No. 4558. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
20.
HutchensRobert. 2003. The Cornell study of employer phased retirement policies: A report on key findings. School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
21.
HutchensRobert. 2010. Worker characteristics, job characteristics, and opportunities for phased retirement. Labour Economics17: 1010–21.
22.
HutchensRobertChenJ.2007. The role of employers in phased retirement: Opportunities for phased retirement among white-collar workers. ILR Collection Articles & Chapters Paper No. 48, Cornell University.
23.
HutchensRobertGrace-MartinK.2006. Employer willingness to permit phased retirement: Why are some more willing than others?Industrial and Labor Relations Review59: 525–46.
24.
InderbitzinLukasStaubliStefanZweimüllerJosef. 2013. Extended unemployment benefits and early retirement: Program complementarity and program substitution. IZA Discussion Paper No. 7330, Bonn.
25.
JoffeMarshall M.HaveThomas R.FeldmanHarold I.KimmelStephen E.2004. Model selection, confounder control, and marginal structural models. American Statistician58(4): 272–79.
26.
KimHaejeongDeVaneySharon A.2005. The selection of partial or full retirement by older workers. Journal of Family and Economic Issues26: 371–94.
27.
LechnerMichaelMiquelRuthWunschConny. 2011. Long-run effects of public sector sponsored training in West Germany. Journal of the European Economic Association9: 742–84.
28.
LechnerMichaelWunschConny. 2013. Sensitivity of matching-based program evaluations to the availability of control variables. Labour Economics21: 111–21.
29.
MachadoC. SofiaPortelaMiguel. 2012. Hours of work and retirement behavior. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6270, Bonn.
30.
MacKinnonJames G.2006. Bootstrap methods in econometrics. Economic Record82: 2–18.
31.
[OECD] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 2009. Live Longer, Work Longer. Paris: OECD.
32.
RobinsonChristinaClarkRobert. 2010. Retiree health insurance and disengagement from a career job. Journal of Labor Research31: 247–62.
33.
RosenbaumPaul R.RubinDonald B.1983. The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika70: 41–50.
34.
RubinDonald B.1979. Using multivariate matched sampling and regression adjustment to control bias in observational studies. Journal of the American Statistical Association74: 318–28.
35.
RuhmChristopher J.1990. Bridge jobs and partial retirement. Journal of Labor Economics8: 482–501.
36.
StaubliStefan. 2011. The impact of stricter criteria for disability insurance on labor force participation. Journal of Public Economics95(9–10): 1223–35.
37.
StaubliStefanZweimüllerJosef. 2013. Does raising the early retirement age increase employment of older workers?Journal of Public Economics108: 17–32.
38.
WangerSusanne. 2009. Altersteilzeit- Beliebt, aber nicht zukunftsgerecht. IAB Kurzbericht, 8-2009, 1–12, Nuremberg.
39.
WunschConny. 2013. Optimal use of labor market policies: The role of job search assistance. Review of Economics and Statistics95: 1030–45.
40.
WunschConnyLechnerMichael. 2008. What did all the money do? On the general ineffectiveness of recent West German labour market programmes. Kyklos61: 134–74.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
