TY  - JOUR
AU  - Friedberg,Leora
AU  - Webb,Anthony
TI  - Retirement and the Evolution of Pension Structure
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9999
PY  - 2003
Y2  - September 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9999
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9999.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Leora Friedberg
Department of Economics
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400182
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4182
Tel: 434/924-3225
Fax: 434/982-2904
E-Mail: lfriedbe@nber.org

Anthony Webb
Center for Retirement Research
Boston College
258 Hammond Street
Chestnut Hill
MA
02467
Tel: 6466627254
E-Mail: Webbaa@bc.edu
AB  - Defined benefit pension plans have become considerably less common since the early 1980s, while defined contribution plans have spread. Previous research showed that defined benefit plans, with sharp incentives encouraging retirement after a certain point, contributed to the striking postwar decline in American retirement ages. In this paper we find that the absence of age-related incentives in defined contribution plans leads workers to retire almost two years later on average, compared to workers with defined benefit plans. Thus, the evolution of pension structure can help explain recent increases in employment among people in their 60s, after decades of decline.
ER  -