Volume 12, Number 3 (Summer) 1977
Quinn, Joseph F. 1977. "Microeconomic Determinants of Early Retirement: A Cross-Sectional View of White Married Men." Journal of Human Resources 12(3):329-346.
A new and very rich body of data, the Social Security Administration's Retirement History Study, is used to study the microeconomic determinants of early retirement among white married men aged 58-63. We analyze three categories of factors: personal and financial characteristics, local labor market conditions, and certain attributes of the individual's job. We find that health status and current eligibility for Social Security and for other pensions are the most important determinants and that there is a definite interaction between the two. The effects of eligibility (and of most of the other explanatory variables) fall primarily on those with health limitations.
The author is Assistant Professor of Economics, Boston College. This research was financed by the Social Security Administration under Contract SSA-PMB-73-219. I would like to thank Robert Hall and Michael Piore of Massachusetts Institute of Technology for their direction and assistance throughout this research, Karen Schwab and her colleagues in the Division of Retirement and Survivor Studies (SSA) for professional support and for an outstanding body of data, and the editor and an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier draft.
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