This study examines how self-employed individuals in Denmark perceive their future retirement compared to employees, with a particular focus on the moderating roles of income and health. Using Danish survey and register data from 2021, the analysis reveals differences between self-employed and employed individuals. Contrary to expectations, self-employment is not significantly associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing identity loss in retirement. However, when including the interaction between self-employment and income, self-employed individuals with the lowest income report lower anticipated identity loss than employees, and this difference diminishes as income increases, highlighting the moderating role of financial resources. Self-employed individuals also report greater confidence in their economic position upon retirement, despite managing their own retirement savings. In contrast, they anticipate lower enjoyment of retirement compared to employees, an effect that is amplified by poor health. Overall, the findings highlight the multidimensional nature of retirement attitudes and emphasize the importance of personal resources in shaping retirement attitudes among the self-employed.
This study examines earned income inequality among employed older adults in South Korea by decomposing it into working hours, hourly wages, and a residual component. Using data from the National Survey of Older Koreans in 2017, 2020, and 2023, the analysis applies the Mean Logarithmic Deviation to investigate the internal structure of inequality within the employed population. A central contribution of this study is to show that the interaction between working hours and wages, captured by the residual component, is the primary mechanism shaping inequality. While inequality in both working hours and hourly wages increased over time, the residual term became substantially more negative and offset a large share of the inequality that would arise from these components. This pattern reflects a negative relationship between wages and working hours, whereby higher-wage individuals tend to work fewer hours, while lower-wage individuals work longer hours. Subgroup analyses reveal substantial heterogeneity across socio-demographic, economic, labor market, and regional dimensions. The equalizing role of the residual term is weaker among vulnerable groups, including the older-old, females, low-income workers, temporary workers, and those in non-capital and rural areas, suggesting limited capacity to adjust labor supply under structural constraints. Overall, the findings demonstrate that earned income inequality among older workers cannot be understood solely through wage dispersion or labor supply differences but requires explicit consideration of the interaction between them.
Retirement constitutes a major life transition with significant implications for well-being, yet whether economically vulnerable individuals benefit equally remains underexplored. Drawing on continuity theory, activity theory, and the job demands-resources (JDR) framework, this study develops competing predictions about how economic vulnerability shapes the relationship between retirement and well-being. We examine the relationship between retirement and subjective well-being among UK adults aged 50-75 and investigate whether low income, lack of pension coverage, and poor health alter these associations. We analyze 13 waves (2009-2022) of the UK Household Longitudinal Study, comprising 26,118 individuals and 180,848 person-years of observation. Fixed-effects regression models are employed to isolate within-person changes across the retirement transition. Results indicate that retirement is significantly associated with improved life satisfaction and reduced psychological distress. Contrary to continuity and activity theory, economic vulnerability did not weaken these beneficial effects. Low-income individuals experienced significantly greater improvements in both outcomes compared to their higher-income counterparts. Those without private pension coverage and those in poor health also demonstrated equal or larger well-being gains upon retirement. This is consistent with the JDR framework, which predicts that disadvantaged workers benefit most from exiting high-strain, low-reward employment. Robustness checks, including an absorbing-state retirement definition and the exclusion of COVID-19 pandemic waves, confirmed these patterns. This suggests that retirement may reduce well-being inequality, even though the vulnerable start at lower levels and differences persist after retirement. While timing is not explored, the economically vulnerable reap significant gains from retirement, and well-being should be part of discussions about longer working lives.
Abstract In 2017, Finland introduced a partial old-age pension scheme, allowing individuals to claim either 25% or 50% of their old-age pension after turning 61, irrespective of their employment status. Claiming a partial pension before the statutory retirement age results in a permanent reduction in the old-age pension. In 2022, high inflation created an unusually large and temporary divergence of three percentage points between pension index adjustments for 2023. Individuals who claimed their pension before the end of 2022 received a permanently higher pension than otherwise similar individuals who claimed in early 2023. The study examines the effect of this temporary increase in the return to claiming a partial old-age pension before 2023 on pension claiming using regression discontinuity design and full population register data. Those who had the opportunity to claim a pension before the turn of the year were 8 percentage points more likely to claim a partial old-age pension in the first month of eligibility, with a relative effect as high as 79%. The effect arises because individuals bring forward their pension claims. Individuals with higher pension accrual, higher earnings, or upper tertiary education were overrepresented among those responding to the temporary increase in the return to claiming. The study contributes to the literature by showing how changes in financial incentives affect the claiming behavior of a flexible partial pension. Additionally, it contributes to the social policy literature by examining whether individuals notice changes in indexation and their subsequent effects on benefit levels.
For decades, gerontologists have competed to objectively define the ideal later life, often eliding the subjective perspectives of older adults. Yet, definitions of successful aging are only meaningful intersubjectively, making lay evaluations crucial to ground theoretical models in the realities they are meant to serve. Such gaps are consequential to the alignment of retirement policies and workplace arrangements with the experiences of older adults. This study explores Singaporean older adults' lay evaluations of three classic theories of aging: the Activity, Continuity, and Disengagement theories of aging. Data from the Lifelong Education for Aging Productively in Singapore project was used. 2,545 respondents, aged 65 to 80, evaluated the propositions of each classic theory. A Venn diagram, latent class analysis (LCA), and regression models were used to classify perception types among older adults and examine their correlates. Results show that all three theories found support among older Singaporeans, with approximately 60% of respondents supporting more than one theory. Five types of lay preferences were identified via LCA, and they were found to be racially and socioeconomically patterned. While the relevance of the theories is demonstrated, this study reveals lay evaluations to be neither universal nor reducible to idiosyncratic preferences, and instead diverse and multifaceted, structured by socioeconomic and racial factors. Findings challenge the notion of a singular ideal pathway in later-life transitions, suggesting the need for an array of retirement and workplace arrangements, as well as identified groups that may need particular attention for inclusive policymaking.
