Working Paper: NBER ID: w26272
Authors: Robert L. Clark; Robert G. Hammond; Siyan Liu
Abstract: Engaging in paid employment after claiming retirement benefits may be an important avenue for individuals to work longer as life expectancies rise. After separating from one’s career employer, individuals may engage in paid work to stay active or to supplement their current level of retirement savings or both. Individuals who choose not to work after claiming may be expressing their preference to stay retired, perhaps because their retirement income is sufficient. However, the decision to work after claiming may be driven by the lack of retirement planning and insufficient savings, while the lack of post-claiming work may reflect the inability to find adequate employment opportunities. We use administrative records merged with panel data from several surveys of public employees in North Carolina to study the decision to engage in paid work after claiming retirement benefits. More than 60 percent of active workers plan to work after claiming benefits, while only around 42 percent of the same sample of individuals have engaged in post-claiming paid work in the first few years after leaving public sector employment. Despite this gap, stated work plans are strongly predictive of actual post-claiming work behavior
Keywords: retirement; public employees; work after retirement; pension benefits; North Carolina
JEL Codes: J14; J26; J45
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| planned to work but did not realize plans (P11) | lower levels of retirement wellbeing (J26) |
| stated work plans (Y10) | actual post-claiming work behavior (J68) |
| younger age (J13) | likelihood of working after retirement (J26) |
| better health (I19) | likelihood of working after retirement (J26) |
| pre-retirement work plans (J26) | actual post-claiming work behavior (J68) |