IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcm/sedapp/257.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Patterns of Retirement as Reflected in Income Tax Records for Older Workers

Author

Listed:
  • Frank T. Denton
  • Ross Finnie
  • Byron G. Spencer

Abstract

If retirement means a substantial and sustained reduction in the time spent working for pay or profit, measurement requires a definition of substantial and sufficient observations of the same individuals to determine whether a transition from “working” to “retired” status has occurred. Using the Statistics Canada Longitudinal Administrative Databank, a 20 percent sample of the individual income tax returns of all tax filers since 1980, we identify those with significant labour force attachment at ages 50-52, and follow them year by year. If retired means having no income from employment, the median age of retirement is about 63 for men, 62 for women. That is true for all cohorts. If earning up to half of one’s previous employment income is deemed consistent with being retired, the median age is about 60 for both men and women. Results obtained in this way are consistent with calculations based on Labour Force Survey data.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank T. Denton & Ross Finnie & Byron G. Spencer, 2009. "Patterns of Retirement as Reflected in Income Tax Records for Older Workers," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 257, McMaster University.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcm:sedapp:257
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/sedap/p/sedap257.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. M. Shannon & D. Grierson, 2004. "Mandatory retirement and older worker employment," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(3), pages 528-551, August.
    2. Ronald Lee, 2003. "The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 167-190, Fall.
    3. Sarah Tanner, 1998. "The dynamics of male retirement behaviour," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 175-196, May.
    4. Frank T. Denton & Byron G. Spencer, 2009. "Population Aging, Older Workers, and Canada's Labour Force," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 35(4), pages 481-492, December.
    5. Emile Tompa, 1999. "Transitions to Retirement: Determinants of Age of Social Security Take Up," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 6, McMaster University.
    6. M. Shannon & D. Grierson, 2004. "Mandatory retirement and older worker employment," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 37(3), pages 528-551, August.
    7. Baker, Michael & Benjamin, Dwayne, 1999. "Early Retirement Provisions and the Labor Force Behavior of Older Men: Evidence from Canada," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 724-756, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Frank T. Denton & Ross Finnie & Byron G. Spencer, 2011. "The Age Pattern of Retirement: A Comparison of Cohort Measures," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 283, McMaster University.
    2. Frank T. Denton & Ross Finnie & Byron G. Spencer, 2009. "Income Replacement in Retirement: Longitudinal Evidence from Income Tax Records," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 261, McMaster University.
    3. Peter Hicks, 2012. "Later Retirement: the Win-Win Solution," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 345, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frank T. Denton & Byron G. Spencer, 2008. "What is Retirement? A Review and Assessment of Alternative Concepts and Measures," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 231, McMaster University.
    2. Todd Morris & Benoit Dostie, 2023. "Graying and staying on the job: The welfare implications of employment protection for older workers," Cahiers de recherche / Working Papers 15, Institut sur la retraite et l'épargne / Retirement and Savings Institute.
    3. Kajitani Shinya & Kan Mari, 2023. "Pension Reform and Improved Employment Protection: Effects on Older Men’s Employment Outcomes," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 23(4), pages 1017-1043, October.
    4. Doreen Wing Han Au & Thomas F. Crossley & Martin Schellhorn, 2005. "The effect of health changes and long‐term health on the work activity of older Canadians," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(10), pages 999-1018, October.
    5. C Machado & Miguel Portela, 2014. "Hours of work and retirement behaviour," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-22, December.
    6. Michael Baker & Jonathan Gruber & Kevin Milligan, 2003. "The retirement incentive effects of Canada's Income Security programs," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 36(2), pages 261-290, May.
    7. Worswick, Chris, 2005. "Regles relatives a la retraite obligatoire et decisions de retraite des professeurs d'universite au Canada," Direction des études analytiques : documents de recherche 2005271f, Statistics Canada, Direction des études analytiques.
    8. Warman, Casey & Worswick, Christopher, 2010. "Mandatory Retirement Rules and the Retirement Decisions of University Professors in Canada," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 1022-1029, December.
    9. Wehn‐Jyuan Tsai, 2018. "Mandatory Retirement and Older Worker Employment Decisions: Evidence from a Matched Difference‐in‐Differences Estimator," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 590-608, October.
    10. Derek Messacar & Petr Kocourek, 2019. "Pathways to Retirement, Well-Being, and Mandatory Retirement Rules: Evidence from Canadian Reforms," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 249-275, September.
    11. Ryan Edwards, 2013. "The cost of uncertain life span," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1485-1522, October.
    12. Martha Alicia Yánez Contreras & Cristian David Maldonado Pedroza & Katherin Paola Del Risco Serje, 2016. "Participación laboral de la población de 60 anos de edad o más en Colombia," Revista de Economía del Caribe 14790, Universidad del Norte.
    13. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.
    14. Schäfer, Andreas, 2014. "Technological change, population dynamics, and natural resource depletion," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 122-136.
    15. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2012. "The Public Economics of Increasing Longevity," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 200(1), pages 41-74, March.
    16. Chiara Ludovica Comolli, 2017. "The fertility response to the Great Recession in Europe and the United States: Structural economic conditions and perceived economic uncertainty," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(51), pages 1549-1600.
    17. Silke van Daalen & Hal Caswell, 2015. "Lifetime reproduction and the second demographic transition: Stochasticity and individual variation," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(20), pages 561-588.
    18. Sha Jiang & Wenyun Zuo & Zhen Guo & Hal Caswell & Shripad Tuljapurkar, 2023. "How does the demographic transition affect kinship networks?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 48(32), pages 899-930.
    19. Zsofia Barany & Nicolas Coeurdacier & Stéphane Guibaud, 2015. "Fertility, Longevity and International Capital Flows," Working Papers hal-01164462, HAL.
    20. David Lam, 2011. "How the World Survived the Population Bomb: Lessons From 50 Years of Extraordinary Demographic History," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(4), pages 1231-1262, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    retirement; older workers;

    JEL classification:

    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mcm:sedapp:257. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demcmca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.