BackgroundIn response to population ageing, most countries within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are planning increases to their pension age. To ensure the effectiveness of such measures, scholars have advocated for continued monitoring of healthy working-life expectancy. However, estimates are limited to a few countries during limited periods of time. Our study aims to estimate healthy and unhealthy working-life expectancy in 14 OECD countries at three points in time between 2002 and 2017.Methods In this population-based study, we used cross-sectional data from nationally representative surveys on ageing that were representative of the population aged 51-65 years in England, the USA, and 11 European countries plus Israel. European countries, except for England, and Israel were divided into two groups according to their score on the Active Ageing Index (AAI). We estimated healthy and unhealthy working-life expectancy, defined as the number of years spent working in good or in poor health. Poor health was defined as the presence of at least one chronic disease. Sullivan's method was used to estimate expectancies.

Objective:To determine whether older workers who follow different work ability (WA) trajectories tend to follow different retirement pathways.Methods:Nationally representative data on Americans born between 1943 and 1948. Latent class growth modeling to estimate trajectories of work ability between ages 53–54 and 65–66. Multinomial log-linear models to assess the association between WA trajectories and retirement pathways.Results:Three WA trajectories were identified: high (74%), declining (17%), and low (9%). Low WA leads more often to an early-gradual retirement. Declining WA leads to both early-gradual and early-crisp retirements.Conclusions:Workers with low and declining WA are more at risk of unemployment, disability, and inactivity prior to retirement; workers with declining WA are also likely to make a direct transition to early retirement. Future changes to social security should consider inter-individual variation over time in WA.

Ages of labor market exit have increased steadily since the late 1990s in OECD countries, but with continuing population aging, there are calls for further stimulation of labor force participation at older ages. Social scientists have extensively studied causes of variation in retirement timing between individuals and across countries, but have paid less attention to causes of variation over time. This study systematically reviews evidence of causes of increases in ages of labor market exit over the past 30 years in OECD countries. Two goals are pursued: first, to provide an overview of the retirement domains that have been subject to investigation; second to compare studies with respect to the magnitude of change in retirement behavior that they attributed to different causes, in different contexts. Nineteen studies were reviewed. Available evidence articulates itself around four domains: intercohort changes in labor force participation of women (3 studies), educational attainment (3 studies) and lifetime wealth (1 study), and changes to social security systems (16 studies). Determinants in all domains explain a significant amount of past increases in ages of labor market exit, though figures attributable to similar determinants vary between studies and across countries. Evidence suggests that further postponement of labor market exit may depend on further increases to normal retirement ages and more limited access to early retirement programs, but also on further increases in educational attainment and the continued integration of women in the labor market. However, a large share of the past increases in ages of labor market exit remains unexplained; therefore, other factors such as those related to work and organizational characteristics deserve further research.