TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gustman,Alan L.
AU  - Steinmeier,Thomas L.
TI  - Employer Provided Pension Data in the NLS Mature Women's Survey and in the Health and Retirement Study
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7174
PY  - 1999
Y2  - June 1999
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7174
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7174.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alan L. Gustman
Department of Economics
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH  03755-3514
Tel: 603/646-2641
Fax: 603/646-2122
E-Mail: ALAN.L.GUSTMAN@DARTMOUTH.EDU

Thomas Steinmeier
Department of Economics
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX 79409
E-Mail: thomas.steinmeier@ttu.edu
AB  - We compute pension wealth from employer provided pension plan descriptions matched to respondent surveys to the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women (NLS-MW) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). These calculations provide detailed information on the level and distribution of pension wealth and a variety of incentives from pensions. Differences between the pensions of men and women are largely explained by differences in earnings. However, there also are differences in the shapes of the pension accrual profiles of defined benefit plans that are likely to reflect the lower tenure of women. Pension coverage is lower in the NLS-MW than in the HRS. As a result, pension wealth is lower in the NLS-MW than in the HRS. But the difference in coverage is not due to the effects of pension matching. Pension values for covered respondents are similar between the NLS-MW and HRS surveys. Systematic differences between the surveys in the rate at which pensions were matched do not have a major effect on findings as to the levels and distributions of pension wealth between the surveys.
ER  -