CHANGING DECISIONS AND PLANS FOR RETIREMENT

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DESCRIPTION: This is a proposal to use secondary data to investigate the processes of decision making for retirement. The investigators argue that people's practical involvement with retirement begins long in advance of the end-game circumstances that are analyzed in research on the retirement "decision," research that usually studies the outcomes, rather than the actual making, of decisions. Although decision making cannot be readily observed in the proposed study, the investigators assert that much can be learned from workers' plans or behavioral intentions. The plans that workers entertain over time are the manifest aspect of decision making. Retirement behavior, ultimately, is the consequence of earlier plans made and re-made that will have channeled workers toward particular employment and retirement outcomes. The investigators assert that workers entertain plans from within an "opportunity structure" composed of biographical and situational factors that make future action conceivable. Because the opportunity structure is unstable, plans can change, rendering workers' encounter with retirement as truly developmental. The project will be based on three biennial waves of data from the National Health and Retirement Study (HRS), from 1992 to 1996, using a study population of approximately 9,800 male and female workers aged 51-61 at Wave 1 and 55-65 at Wave 3. The five specific aims are to: a) establish a comprehensive measurement framework for general types of retirement plans that encompass the heterogeneity of work and retirement intentions, including authentic stances such as plans never to retire and uncertain plans; b) confirm the theoretical predictability of retirement plan types and the relationship of these behavioral intentions to preparation steps; c) examine the lability of plans and whether they become more defined over time; also to evaluate the near-term accuracy of plans for workers who exit their jobs; d) test with lagged models whether plans flow from a structure of opportunity that rises in force with the approach of retirement; and e) link change in the opportunity structure to changes in plans, and test whether the temporal depth of prior plans predicts their later fulfillment. The investigators argue that detailed information about people's extended decision making for later life should benefit retirement preparation specialists, authorities who disseminate lifestyle advice to persons of retireable age, and policy makers who design retirement incentives. This project will examine workers' emotional and financial preparation for their later years and add to knowledge about who chooses their future, who fails to control it, and who risks losing control of retirement decisions.