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Benefits Of A Paid Employment

Decent Essays

Paid employment is probably not the first thing that leaps to mind when the subject of

older Americans comes up. Yet many people remain in the labor force well into old age, and

their numbers are increasing. In numerous surveys over more than a decade, preretirees have

been insisting that they expect to work during their so-called “retirement years,” both because

they want to remain active and because they need the income or health insurance that employ-

ment provides (Helman et al., 2008; Yakoboski & Dickemper, 1997). Although there is con-

siderable evidence that workers tend to retire earlier than they expected to (Helman et al., 2008),

many signs point to prolonged work lives for a sizable portion of the labor force. …show more content…

Retirement became more affordable for more workers at younger ages. Employers, many of whom harbored cost concerns as well as negative attitudes about the technological

competence and learning ability of older workers (AARP, 1995), had little need to stand in the

way of the retirement of their older employees.

They could turn instead to the huge cohort of baby boomers and growing numbers of

married women entering the workforce. The early retirement incentives in many private pension

plans enabled employers to divest themselves of their older workers in a relatively humane way

and made the transition to retirement less painful.

The picture for women - notably those aged 55 to 64, who are now perhaps more

appropriately described as “middle-aged” - was considerably different. The labor force

participation rate for these women rose as succeeding cohorts of younger women entered and

remained longer in the workforce and as older women returnedto work after caregiving. The rate

increased by nearly 18 percentage points from 1948 to 1985, or from 24.3% to 42%. Women aged 65 and over, on the other hand, had rather limited labor force attachment to

begin with, a fact that changed little from the late-1940s to the

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