Much of the empirical research on aging and work actually focuses on aging and "end of work"-retirement. Significantly less research has been conducted on how the non-financial, as well as financial, conditions of work affect the decision to stay in the labor force beyond conventional retirement. To address this, Michican State University professor Peter Berg and his colleagues Chris Ruhm and Mary Hamman intend to assess how the "employment environment," defined to include characteristics of the job, employer, and the industry, facilitates or impedes individuals' abilities to work past conventional retirement age. To conduct their analysis, Berg and his team will rely on a uniquely rich German dataset, which includes detailed questions regarding the employment environment and contains extensive data on such relevant factors as staffing patterns, scheduling, hours of work, modifications to jobs demands, financial information, and turnover. Funds from this grant will support this research. The results of this study will likely shed light on the kinds of variables that could in the future be included in U.S. survey instruments, such as the Health and Retirement Study and could be important in identifying what U.S. employers might consider doing in order to keep employees working past age 65.

The viability of the current Social Security system and its need for reform has been a topic of recent public and political concern. What has not been getting comparable public or political attention, however, is the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program, which provides benefits to American workers who suffer from disabilities. SSDI's eligibility rules act as a major disincentive for continued employment for those applying for its benefits, since they provide income support and Medicare coverage to individuals with work-limiting disabilities only if they do not engage in substantial gainful employment. Yet despite this disincentive, some disabled workers continue working in some capacity. Funds from this grant will support research by the RAND Corporation to advance our understanding of how employer practices affect workers' continued employment after the onset of a work-limiting disability. Questions to be addressed by this research include: 1. How does workplace accommodation (with regard to how, when, and where work is done) affect the duration of continuing employment by an older worker following onset of disability? 2. How does health insurance coverage (availability, continuity, and source) and pension coverage (type and eligibility ages) affect the duration of continuing employment by an older worker following onset of disability? This project will rely on the longitudinal, cross-sectional data of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which has detailed questions on health insurance, as well as employer accommodations, including work schedules and work modifications.

David Wise, of the Kennedy School of Government and the National Bureau of Economic Research, has directed a remarkably successful program at NBER since 1985 on the Economics of Aging. He has now assembled a team of distinguished economists, including Stanford's John Shoven and Harvard's David Cutler, to expand this program's focus to include research on aging and work, by examining the conditions in public policy and in the workplace that make it difficult or costly for people to work longer than conventional retirement age. This grant supports four interrelated research projects. The first project develops tools for estimating how policy reforms would affect work at older ages and details two possible reforms: a "paid up" social security reform and a Medicare-as-first-payer reform, each of which could facilitate longer working lives. The second project analyzes relationships between firm policy provisions and work behavior at older ages, based on the diverse pension and retiree health plans of employees of Towers Watson client companies. The third project addresses the effect of improving health status on the ability to work at older ages and analyzes mortality reductions in 12 countries, emphasizing the rationale that these trends provide for facilitating longer working lives. The fourth project further develops an international perspective by exploring older workers' preferences for work arrangements and employers' willingness to accommodate such preferences in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France.

Unlike in the private sector, almost all state and local government workers-from employees of state agencies to public school teachers and policemen-participate in defined benefit pension plans. Not only do these plans strain public budgets, they generally incent early retirement by penalizing work at older ages. Funds from this grant will support a project by the Urban Institute to enhance knowledge and awareness of the work disincentives created by state and local defined benefit pension plans and of existing reform options that encourage public?sector employees to work longer. Under the direction of Richard Johnson and Eugene Steuerle, this project will accomplish several objectives over the course of three stages of work. The first stage of the project will quantify work disincentives in state and local defined benefit pension plans, compare disincentives across states and localities and across occupations, and identify existing reforms that have reduced work disincentives. The second stage of the project will match these disincentive measures to state and local workers in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and model their impact on work and retirement decisions. The final stage will follow state and local retirees over time in the SIPP and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to measure their economic status and the share who return to work, either in the public or private sector. Ultimately, this project will enrich our understanding of how defined benefit pension plans discourage work at older ages and identify reforms that do or potentially could encourage later retirement.

By the mid-1980s, a century-old trend toward earlier labor force withdrawal by older American men came to a halt and subsequently reversed itself. At the same time, a shorter trend of flat labor force participation rates for older women stopped and their labor force participation rates began increasing. As a result, on average, older American men and women are now working longer and retiring later. Funds from this grant support a project by The Brookings Institution to estimate the impact of delayed retirement on overall economic output, on government income and payroll tax revenues, and on public spending, specifically on government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The project consists of several integrated subprojects. The first deconstructs the nature of the later retirement trend, asking which types of workers, in terms of gender, education, skill levels, and income, are retiring later and how they delay labor force departure. The second subproject investigates the nature of the physical and mental well-being of retirees over time. The third and fourth subprojects, which are to be informed by these labor force data, involve macro- and micro-simulation modeling of the impact of a rising retirement age for the economy and for public finances. At the completion of the subprojects, Brookings will organize a public forum in Washington, D.C. at which the research findings will be presented and discussed before an invited audience of policymakers, academics, and governmental and nongovernmental agencies concerned with aging and budget policy.

The American Council on Education (ACE) has successfully partnered with Sloan since 2003 in developing and administering the Sloan Faculty Career Flexibility Awards. Three rounds of the awards program have been completed, including awards focused on research universities, large master's universities, and liberal arts colleges. ACE proposes three main activities with this grant: pilot work with nine institutions of higher education in three types of institutions of higher education (three research, three large master's, and three liberal arts colleges) to understand further what they are doing for faculty pre- and post-retirement; an invitational conference that will involve teams comprised of administrators and faculty from the participating colleges and universities; and a new awards program to identify and recognize best practices regarding the culminating stages of faculty careers that meet the needs of both the institutions and the faculty members. Five winners in each of the three categories will be awarded $100,000 in recognition of their innovative efforts to provide effective faculty retirement practices.

For faculty at U.S. colleges and universities, transitioning into retirement often involves the daunting challenge of effectively reconfiguring their lives after decades of pursuing absorbing careers in which their identities are synonymous with their work. This grant to the University of California, Berkeley aims at helping institutions provide the (non-financial) policies, practices, and programs that will facilitate the retirement transition for faculty and serve the goals and needs of both the retiring faculty and the mission of the institution. Funded activities include support for two studies: the first descriptive, the second causal. The descriptive study will examine a diverse range of aging-related issues, including professional activities and productivity, career experiences, retirement and post-retirement career plans, and family relations. The causal study will collect and analyze data from the naturally occurring experimental conditions that arose from the three waves of the University of California Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Programs of the early 1990s. Outcome from this research promises to be applicable far outside the University of California system, and interest from university and college administrators has been significant.