Labor force transitions of older married couples in Germany

Abstract

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. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may Labor Force Transitions of Older Married Couples in GermanyDavid M. Blau Regina T. Riphahn The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent, nonprofit limited liability company (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) supported by the Deutsche Post AG. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. The current research program deals with (1) mobility and flexibility of labor markets, (2) internationalization of labor markets and European integration, (3) the welfare state and labor markets, (4) labor markets in transition, (5) the future of work, and (6) general labor economics. D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. (Bundesminister, 1996). A similar pattern in the UnitedStates was documented by Perrachi and Welch (1994). As a result of this trend, it is increasingly common for both spouses in married couples to be employed as they approach the These and related questions are of inherent scientific interest, but are also potentially important for public policy. Recent reforms and proposed changes in public pension plans in many countries will alter the incentives and opportunities for husbands and wives to coordinate their labor force behavior. The financial and labor market impact of such reforms will depend in part on the relationship between the labor force behavior of older spouses, so understanding this behavior is important.2 See also Wagner (1991), Pischner and Wagner (1992), Allmendinger (1990), andGiannelli (1996). 2In this paper we use monthly observations from the first eleven waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to describe and analyze the relationship between the labor force behavior of husbands and wives in Western Germany. Wagner (1996) shows that among German couples in which both spouses have a long-term attachment to the...

Persistence of full- and part-time farming in Southern China

“…Aside from the observed covariates z k (t) an unobserved spell-specific random effect is assumed to change the baseline hazard in a multiplicative way. To avoid estimation bias due to such unobserved heterogeneity (frailty) the parameter  ji is included representing the frailty variance assuming a gamma distribution (e. g. Blau and Riphahn, 1999;Meitzen, 1986;Meyer, 1990).…”

“…Considering duration avoids potential bias in other variables' coefficients which could arise through neglecting duration. Additionally, duration dependence implies that households' responsiveness to policy interventions depends on their 3 Examples of the methodology applied to similar research questions can be found in Bradley et al (2003) as well as Blau and Riphahn (1999). Applications in the case of transition countries are presented by Orazem and Vodopivec (1997), Sorm and Terell (2000) and Appleton et al (2002).…”

Early Retirement Among Men in Britain and Germany: How Important is Health?

“…15 The use of the term wife does not imply anything about the legal status of the relationship and is also applied here to people living as couples who are not legally married. 16 See, for example, Blau and Riphahn (1999), Jime´nez-Martı´n et al (1999), Gustman and Steinmeier (2000), Michaud (2003). 17 See Kerkhofs and Lindeboom (1995).…”

Health and Retirement Decisions: An Update of the Literature

“…One of the first European couple-approach papers analyses the labour force transitions of older married couples in West Germany (Blau & Riphahn, 1999). A measure of subjective health satisfaction and the presence and the degree of an officially recognised handicap did not turn out to have an impact on the transition rates.…”