Work, retirement, health and care:
Changes across cohorts and the
implications for working beyond state
pension age
Glaser, Karen, Di Gessa, Giorgio, Corna, Laurie, Platts,
Loretta, Stuchbury, Rachel, Worts, Diana, McDonough,
Peggy, Sacker, Amanda, and Price, Debora
WHERL is an interdisciplinary consortium funded by the crossresearch council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW)
programme under Extending Working Lives (ES/L002825/1)
The WHERL consortium is investigating a crucial question for ageing
societies: How inequalities across the lifecourse relate to paid work in later
life in the UK.
Our main aim is to investigate lifecourse influences on later life work
trajectories and the implications for health and wellbeing of working up to
and beyond the state pension age.
The project builds on an existing UK-Canadian collaboration examining
lifecourse influences on later life work trajectories across several European
countries and the US.
Research themes
• Using a wide variety of complex large scale datasets, our interdisciplinary
team are tackling projects that cover three major areas:
• i) a comprehensive assessment of lifecourse determinants and
consequences for health and wellbeing of working up to and beyond state
pension age;
• ii) an evaluation of whether (and how) these relationships have changed
for different cohorts and over time; and
• iii) modelling of the financial consequences of working up to and beyond
state pension age for those with different lifecourse trajectories.
Key Research
Question
• How have work and family experiences across the life course
changed across cohorts, and how are these patterns related to
paid work in the years leading up to, and beyond, the SPA?
Background
• Over one-quarter of adults between the ages of 50 and the current State
Pension Age (SPA) in the UK are not in the labour market
• The government response: packages of policy reforms which include
raising the state pension age (SPA)
• Life course continuity: earlier experiences shape subsequent
engagement in relation to retirement (O’Rand 1996 and O’Rand,
Henretta & Krecker 1992)
Theory
• ‘Attachment hypothesis’ vs. ‘opportunity costs’
• Women 55-64 (using US 1984 SIPP) who worked continuously more
likely to work – evidence for attachment (Pienta et al. 1994)
• More recent work using BHPS (1991-2004) also shows evidence for
attachment , i.e. women with longer periods in labour marker and shorter
periods of family care more likely to be in paid work after SPA (Finch
2013)
• But, also evidence of opportunity costs in that married women more
likely to be in paid work, and divorced/separated women who
remained unpartnered.
Methods
• Retirement Survey (1988/89), British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) 1998, English
Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) 2008
• Retrospective life histories
• Sample: women aged 55-64 and men born 60-69 at each time point.
• Use optimal matching analysis to summarise employment, marital and fertility
histories between the ages of 16-54 for women and 16-59 for men
• Consider work up to and beyond SPA (self-report paid work month/week prior to
interview)
• Any PT or FT employment at ages 55-59 & 60-64 for women; 60-64 & 65-69 for
men
Labour Market Histories
Women 16-54
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Full-time throughout to 54
Non-employed throughout to 54
Full-time early exit (at 49)
Family carer to part-time (Short break 26-32, PT to 54)
Family carer to full-time (Long break 22-34, FT to 54)
Family carer throughout (FT to 21, break 22-54)
Full-time to part-time (FT to 21, PT 22-54)
Family Histories
Fertility Histories
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
No children
One early
One later
Two early
Two/three later
Early large
Marital Histories
1. Never married
2. Long-term married
3. Marriage ends early
Key Covariates
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Lifetime – Labour Market and Fertility
Age
No partner, with partner in LBF, and with partner not in LBF
Ever separated/divorced and ever widowed
Care provision
Tenure, education, income
Health: SRH, health limitations, mobility
Labour Market
History
Labour Market History
Women 55-64
1988/89
RS
2008 ELSA (wave 4)
FT up to 54
19
24
Not employed/FC
28
17
7
7
FT to PT/FC to PT
32
36
FC to FT
15
16
100
100
Early exit at 49
Total
Women 55-64
Labour Market
History
Women 1988/89 (RS)
Women 2008 (ELSA)
No work
<=20
21+ hrs
No work
<=20
21+ hrs
59
6
35
30
15
55
Not employed/FC 88
7
5
76
10
13
Early exit at 49
86
11
4
79
17
3
FT to PT/FC to PT
48
33
19
43
25
31
FC to FT
52
11
37
47
10
43
FT up to 54
Women 55-64
Partnership and
Fertility History
Women 1988/89 (RS)
Women 2008 (ELSA)
No work
<=20
21+ hrs
No work
<=20
21+ hrs
No partner
68
7
25
49
16
35
Partner not in
paid work
78
10
12
70
13
17
Partner in paid
work
47
23
30
32
23
45
No children
73
7
20
53
16
31
Child early
64
16
19
51
17
31
Child late
57
22
20
37
19
44
Women 55-64
Multinomial Logistic Regression
Women 1988/89 (RS)
Women 2008 (ELSA)
PT vs. no work FT vs. no work PT vs. no work
FT vs. no work
FT up to 54
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
NET/FC
0.52
0.04***
0.30***
0.09***
Early exit at 49
0.91
0.05***
0.67
0.03***
FT to PT/FC to PT 4.78***
0.39***
1.32
0.46***
FC to FT
1.07
0.44**
0.56**
1.81
Note: Controlling for children early and late (ref no children); no current partner and partner not in LBF (ref. partner
in LBF); A-level, O-level, CSE, technical, no educational qualifs (ref. university and above); own home with mortgage
and rents or social housing (ref. own home outright); income quintiles (ref. highest); Providing care for sick or
disabled adult (ref. not providing care; Self-rated health – good, fair or poor (ref. very good/excellent); Mobility
limitations (ref. no mobility limitation) and limiting health conditions (ref. no limiting health conditions.
Summary
• ‘Attachment Hypothesis’
• Women with continuous full-time labour market history consistently more likely to be
in paid work at older ages.
• Also true for those who had children later and who have partners in paid work.
• More advantaged characteristics
• Those in lowest income quintile and with poorer health consistently less likely to be
paid work in later life
• ‘Opportunity Costs’
• For women 55-64 in 2008 those ever divorced or separated significantly more likely
to be in full-time paid work at older ages
Future Steps
• BHPS 1998
Additional covariates:
• Eligible for occupational pension (other than state pension)
• Usual social class
• Caregiving histories
Questions
www.wherl.ac.uk