The Labor of Older Americans: Retirement of Men On and Off the Job, 1870–1937

Abstract

Labor force participation rates for American men sixty and over are estimated for the period 1870 through 1937. They suggest a higher frequency of retirement and quite different trends in the incidence of retirement than have usually been supposed. Evidence is also presented to establish that many older industrial workers changed to less renumerative and less demanding occupations late in their working life. This “on-the-job retirement” may have made the transition from employment to full retirement less sudden than today.

Labor Market Status of Older Males in the United States, 1880-1940

“…It shows that long-term unemployment was a 23 significant labor market experience at the turn of the century for wage-earners in general. Among Margo (1993) and Ransom and Sutch (1986) also report that the odds of being unemployed for 6 24 months or longer in 1900 increased with age holding other individual characteristics constant.…”

“…This new interpretation of 3 the state of economic activity of the elderly is based on evidence that tends to reject the key theses of the traditional view. First, Ransom and Sutch (1986) reported that the LFPR of older males was stable at a relatively low level until the enactment of Social Security in 1935. Therefore, the idea that aged workers were being forced out of the work force is questionable.…”

“…The main source of the disagreement on the LFPR of older men is how to determine whether an old man participated in the labor force by looking at his gainful occupation (Moen 1987b;Ransom and Sutch 1986;1989;Margo 1993;Carter and Sutch 1996b). The conventional way of selecting nonparticipants is to exclude from the counting of the labor force persons who were not gainfully employed and those whose occupation was recorded as "retired" or a nonoccupational title.…”

“…The conventional way of selecting nonparticipants is to exclude from the counting of the labor force persons who were not gainfully employed and those whose occupation was recorded as "retired" or a nonoccupational title. Ransom and Sutch (1986) suspected that some of those who had a gainful occupation, such as men who were unemployed for a prolonged period during the census year, may have been practically out of the labor force. Moen (1987b) and Margo (1993), on the other hand, suggested that the long-term unemployed should be regarded as participants based on the guidelines for census enumerators and the differences in the characteristics between the long-term unemployed and nonparticipants.…”

Honderdvijftig jaar levenslopen : De Historische Steekproef Nederlandse bevolking

“…We verwachten daarentegen dat de ouderdom vaker met neerwaartse mobiliteit verbonden was. Werkgevers konden proberen om oudere werknemers die niet zo snel meer waren, of vaker ziek, te lozen of in ieder geval werk te geven dat minder geschoold was en minder verdiende (Ransom & Sutch, 1986;Johnson, 1994;Bulder, 1993). Op grond van een analyse van de Nederlandse beroepentellingen in de periode 1899-1947 is wel geconcludeerd dat de meeste bejaarde mannen bleven werken (Bulder, 1993).…”