The Distribution of Time in Retirement: Evidence From the Health and Retirement Survey

This is the first study to investigate the distribution of retirement time. We apply hot-deck imputation to Health and Retirement Study data to construct a synthetic sample of people who lived natural human life spans to measure their duration of time between withdrawing from the labor force and death. Men are more likely than women to die without retiring and Blacks and women with low educational attainment have shorter retirements and spend larger shares of their retirement time needing assistance with one or more activities of daily living (ADLs). We also find defined benefit pensions offset the negative impact of male low socioeconomic status how much time is spent in retirement needing assistance with ADLs impaired. Some groups with shorter than average life spans cannot entirely compensate by retiring early. In the United States, access to retirement time is unequally distributed and may become more unequal as pension wealth and longevity inequalities increase.