Older workers

The Effect of the Social Security Student Benefit on Lifetime Earnings

March 5, 2024
Susan Barnes
Financial well-being, Older workers, Survivor benefit

Between 1965 and 1981, Social Security extended eligibility for dependent benefits from age 18 to age 22 for individuals who were enrolled full-time in school. The “student benefit” ended in 1981, and past research has shown that the benefit’s elimination…

Key findings on ethnic, gender, and racial disparities

May 3, 2023
Susan Barnes
COVID-19, Demographic trends, Disability, Disparities, Financial well-being, Health, Older workers

Traditional and Nontraditional Earnings: Demographic, Financial, and Beneficiary Patterns

March 1, 2023
Susan Barnes
Financial well-being, Labor Supply, Older workers, retirement savings, Self-employment

We use the 2014 and 2018 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to create a schema of earnings that come from employee and nonemployee sources. Traditional earnings are from a job or incorporated business, while nontraditional earnings…

Bridging Employment for Older Workers and the Role of Flexible Scheduling Arrangements

February 28, 2023
Susan Barnes
Labor force participation, Labor Supply, Older workers, Retirement, Second career, Unretirement

Work and Retirement of Older Black and Hispanic Adults

February 28, 2023
Susan Barnes
Disparities, Financial well-being, Health, Older workers, Retirement

Bridging Employment for Older Workers and the Role of Flexible Scheduling Arrangements

February 15, 2023
Susan Barnes
Labor force participation, Labor Supply, Older workers, Retirement, Second career, Unretirement

We conduct a series of stated preference experiments to determine the willingness of hiring and human resource managers to pay for certain job attributes. A cross section of U.S. hiring managers were given experimental vignettes about an existing employee or…

Work and Retirement of Older Black and Hispanic Adults

February 15, 2023
Susan Barnes
Disparities, Financial well-being, Health, Older workers, Retirement

Growing U.S. income inequality and the aging of Black and Hispanic populations point to greater risks of financial insecurity for older populations in coming years. Research on retirement determinants for Blacks and Hispanics is limited. Using data from the Health…

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Effects of COVID-19 on Job Separation and Financial Precarity

October 25, 2022
Susan Barnes
COVID-19, Disparities, Financial well-being, Health and Retirement Study, Labor force participation, Older workers, poverty

Drawing on Health and Retirement Study data collected in 2021, we will examine racial differences in the COVID-19 pandemic’s consequences on financial security. We hypothesize that, relative to their white counterparts, Black and Hispanic older workers were more likely to…

The Role of Physical Job Demands and the Physical Work Environment in Retirement Outcomes

June 6, 2022
Susan Barnes
Labor force participation, O*NET, Occupational Requirements Survey, Older workers, Retirement

Heterogeneity in Self-Employment and the Transition to Retirement among Older Adults in the United States

April 13, 2022
Susan Barnes
Financial well-being, Health and Retirement Study, Older workers, Self-employment

The fraction of workers who are self-employed increases with age, but the types of self-employment that older workers do and the effects of this work on their well-being is not well understood. This project examines such heterogeneity by considering how…