Volume 14, Number 1 (Winter) 1979
Burkhauser, Richard V. 1979. "The Pension Acceptance Decision of Older Workers." Journal of Human Resources 14(1):63-75.
This study focuses on factors related to an older worker's decision to accept a pension and on how this influences subsequent market work. A life-cycle model is used which emphasizes the asset nature of the pension decision and in particular includes changes in potential earnings streams due to the work restrictions imposed by a pension. The empirical results show that the timing of acceptance of a pension depends upon the actuarial value of the plan at different ages, not on payments in any one year. While health affects the pension decision, voluntary economic decision variables play a major role in the timing of pension acceptance for both the healthy and those in ill health.
The author is a Project Associate at the Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The author wishes to thank James Heckman, Edward Lazear, Eugene Smolensky, George Tolley, and the editor for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. Part of my research was done while on leave to the Office of Income Security Policy, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
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