Is There an American Way of Aging? Income Dynamics of the Elderly in the U.S. and Germany

Hungerford, Thomas L.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.386962

Cited by 3 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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Section: Sample Characteristics and Details Of Estimation Approachsupporting

confidence: 92%

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Late-career Risks in Changing Welfare States

Heisig¹

2015

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For quite some time, a key finding and theoretical puzzle in comparative welfare state research was welfare states' remarkable stability. In the last decade, however, it has become clear that advanced welfare states were (far) less immovable than they seemed at first. In fact, speaking of changing welfare states captures much better the actual reforms that were taking place. This series is about the trajectories of those changes. Have there been path-breaking welfare innovations or are the changes incremental instead? Are welfare states moving in a similar or even convergent direction, or are they embarking on divergent trajectories of change? What new policies have been added, by which kind of political actors, how, and with what consequences for competitiveness, employment, income equality and poverty, gender relations, human capital formation, or fiscal sustainability? What is the role of the European Union in shaping national welfare state reform?This series answers these and related questions by studying the socioeconomic, institutional and political conditions for welfare state change, its governance, and its outcomes across a diverse set of policy areas. The policy areas can address traditional "old" social risks like old age, unemployment, sickness (including the health care system), disability and poverty and inequality in general, or "new" social risks that have arisen mainly due to post-industrialization, such as reconciling work and family life, non-standard employment, and low and inadequate skills. In addition to focusing on the welfare state more narrowly defined, the series also welcomes publication on related areas, such as the housing market. The overriding objective of the series is tracing and explaining the full trajectories of contemporary welfare state change and its outcomes. Editors of the series

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Section: Sample Characteristics and Details Of Estimation Approachsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…See Hungerford (2003) for a German-American comparison of longer-term income trends after retirement. 17 Respondents could give multiple reasons so there may be some overlap among those categories.…”

Section: 3mentioning

confidence: 99%

Late-career Risks in Changing Welfare States

Heisig¹

2015

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“…In other words, there is little evidence of systematic postretirement income trends at least until t + 4 / t + 5 . This is consistent with the results of Hungerford (2003), who studies income dynamics after retirement in Germany and the us and finds no clear trends until about four years after retirement. 2 To simplify the presentation, I therefore generally present the average of four-and six-year income changes rather than separate results.…”

Section: Sample Characteristics and Details Of Estimation Approachsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…17 Sociological research within the 16 The main reason for not considering longer-term changes is that meaningful comparisons across different event periods would no longer be feasible because of sample attrition and the obvious fact that a given event must have occurred at least a year before the last year of data for a worker's income a year after the event to be observed. See Hungerford (2003) for a German-American comparison of longer-term income trends after retirement. 17 Respondents could give multiple reasons so there may be some overlap among those categories.…”

Section: 3mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A potential concern is that income just before retirement may be unrepresentatively low: Workers might have already reduced their work hours or work in (lower-paying) 'bridge jobs' (Ruhm 1990) that are not representative 2 However, Hungerford (2003), who analyzes changes relative to income in the first year after retirement rather than relative to preretirement income, also finds that American retirees of both sexes experience a steady decline of real income after their fourth or fifth year in retirement, while German retirees, and especially German men, even see their real income increase. He argues that these divergent trends are attributable to the greater relative importance of public benefits in Germany: While public retirement benefits are typically indexed to inflation or real wage growth, the complementary pensions are often not adjusted for changes in the cost of living and their real value therefore erodes over time.…”

Section: Sample Characteristics and Details Of Estimation Approachmentioning

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Late-career Risks in Changing Welfare States

Heisig¹

2014

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Part I Background 1 Introduction 1.1 Why compare Germany and the United States? 1.2 Why study income mobility around job loss and retirement? 1.3 Overview of the study 2 Welfare state change and income mobility: a framework 2.1 Income mobility: relevance, limitations, and empirical approaches 2.2 Income mobility around adverse life events -a framework 2.3 The focal events: job loss and retirement 3 Institutional context and social policy change 3.1 Macroeconomic context 3.2 Differences and trends in the employment levels of older people 3.3 Institutional context and the (re)employment prospects of older workers 3.4 Differences and changes in public and employment-based protection 3.5 Female labor force participation and earnings arrangements 3.6 Summary 4 Data and methods 4.1 Conceptual framework and analytic strategy 4.2 Implementation of did matching and compositional adjustments 4.3 Data and key measures Part II Economic consequences of retirement 5 Literature review and research questions 5.1 Why should economic well-being change at retirement? 5.2 Institutional context and income changes at retirement: research questions and hypotheses 5.3 Previous research on income change at retirement 6 The changing economic consequences of retirement 6.1 Retirement patterns and economic situation of nonworking individuals 6.2 Sample characteristics and details of estimation approach 6.3 Income changes around exit from work 6.4 Summary and conclusions 6.5 Additional results Part III Economic consequences of late-career job loss 7 Literature review and research questions 7.1 Employment, earnings and household income after late-career job loss 7.2 Institutional context and the impact of late-career job loss on employment and income: research questions and hypotheses 7.3 Previous empirical research 8 The changing economic consequences of late-career job loss 8.1 Sample characteristics and details of estimation approach 8.2 Empirical results 8.3 Summary and conclusions 8.4 Additional results Part IV Conclusion 9 Conclusion 9.1 Key findings: welfare regimes and the 'Great Risk Shift' revisited 9.2 Implications and directions for future research Part I Background 1 'Eine zentrale These des Buchs lautet, dass der Sozialstaat seit Mitte der 1970er-Jahre restrukturiert und demontiert wird [...] die neoliberale Wende [bringt] zwar das Ende des Wohlfahrtsstaates, wie ihn die "alte" Bundesrepublik kannte, mit sich; eine Hochleistungs-, Konkurrenz-und Ellbogengesellschaft nach us-amerikanischem Muster bietet aber für die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung keine erstrebenswerte Alternative.'

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Sliding into Poverty? Cross-National Patterns of Income Source Change and Income Decay in Old Age

Williamson¹,

Smeeding

2004

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: In this article we examine the change in the mix of income and benefits that older adults receive as they age, with a focus on older women. Our study is a crossnational comparison of five OECD countries using the Luxemburg Income Study database. We investigate the change of private income and social benefits following synthetic cohorts for two decades. Our study reveals that older women rely heavily on socially provided benefits for a majority of their income, and these benefits are primarily responsible for whether older women find themselves in poverty or not. Older men and women in countries with relatively generous (or well targeted) social retirement and social transfer benefits have lower levels of poverty. A caveat of the study is a comparison of older adults who own their homes and those who rent. We find that older homeowners are less likely to be in poverty than renters. As the value of homes and homeownership increase, housing will become an especially important source of support in old age. Terms of use: Documents in

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Is There an American Way of Aging? Income Dynamics of the Elderly in the U.S. and Germany

Cited by 3 publications

References 20 publications

Late-career Risks in Changing Welfare States

Late-career Risks in Changing Welfare States

Late-career Risks in Changing Welfare States

Sliding into Poverty? Cross-National Patterns of Income Source Change and Income Decay in Old Age

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