Changing Work Demands and
Compositional Changes in
Occupations: Effects on Retirement
Comments by
Josh Mitchell
U.S. Census Bureau
August 7, 2015
The views expressed in this research, including those related to statistical, methodological, technical, or
operational issues, are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official positions or
policies of the Census Bureau. The author accepts responsibility for all errors.
This presentation is released to inform interested parties of ongoing research and to encourage discussion of
work in progress. This presentation reports the results of research and analysis undertaken by Census
Bureau staff. It has undergone more limited review than official publications.
Overview
• Explore association between late-career occupation
and timing of retirement in HRS
• Compare contribution of occupation-level
characteristics from O*NET and HRS-reported job
characteristics
• Find important explanatory role for occupation in
retirement decisions but interpretation unclear as of
now…
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General comments
• Provides preliminary evidence on an important
labor market relationship where there is little
existing research
• Suggests that changing nature of work
environment may be important determinant of
future SS solvency
• Will focus most of my comments on places to go
in future drafts
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What is the interpretation?
• Lifecycle labor supply framework
• Substitution and wealth effects
• How does observed late-career occupational choice
relate?
• People are not randomly assigned to
occupations
• Differences in accumulated human capital, permanent
income, ability to save, tastes for work, etc.
• These considerations should motivate future regression
specifications
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How fluid is occupation?
• Occupation from previous job(s)/ longest job also
in HRS
• Occupation at what point in career is most important
predictor for retirement outcomes?
• How much within-cohort occupational change do
we actually see?
• Earlier in life as a benchmark
• Do older workers switch jobs rather than retire?
• How does occupational distribution shift across
cohorts?
• Decompose change in age at retirement (DFL)
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Clarifying variables of interest
• Occupation/tasks variables
– Ways to reduce dimensionality
– Skills index
– More graphs
• Definition of early / late retirement
– Not working / self-reported retirement / claiming
– How to handle disability?
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Supplement with Census data
• Decennial Long-Form and American Community
Survey
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Large samples
Can look at evolution in 1990, 2000, 2005-2013 samples
Occupation reported even if job ended up to 5 years ago
Ex: can estimate fraction of people age 65 who are
currently working in a given occupation where
denominator is last worked in that occupation within last
five years
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