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Title: Determinants of Labor Force Participation during the Retirement Decade: An Analysis of Aged Black Males and Aged White Males
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Crawley, Brenda
Determinants of Labor Force Participation during the Retirement Decade: An Analysis of Aged Black Males and Aged White Males
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign, 1981. DAI-A 42/02, p. 857, August 1981
Cohort(s): Older Men
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Labor Force Participation; Racial Differences; Retirement/Retirement Planning

The purpose of this study was to examine the determinants of labor force participation during the retirement decade ages 60 to 69 for black males and white males. Not only the present crisis in retirement income maintenance programs but impending demographic trends for the aged make much more important the question of work force attachment for this group. Additionally, research findings suggest contradictory factors affecting labor force participation for white aged and for black aged. Logic would indicate that white workers have higher incomes and better jobs and therefore white workers would have less need to work during the retirement decade. Given higher income levels and more past labor force participation then there should be higher pension benefits, greater savings, and more security as one faces retirement. The aging white might be expected to gain by retirement and withdrawal from the labor force. Black workers, on the other hand, will have had less pension entitlement, lower incomes and less savings. Therefore, black workers will be forced to continue labor force participation in greater numbers. A body of research supports this common sense observation. There is, however, a second common sense proposition which is drawn from the literature and is equally attractive and which reflects the opposite observation noted above. Due to structural inequalities of several kinds one can assume that white workers have more attractive and interesting jobs and better health and in general more opportunity to continue employment. Other factors being equal, one might expect that white workers would more often remain in the labor force and would earn higher income as they did so. This study investigated socio-economic factors which impact on aged participation during the retirement decade. While the primary focus of the study was descriptive, the following hypothesis based on available but limited research was tested: Older white males are more likely than older black males to have higher labor force participation rates during the retirement decade when income, education, and age are held constant. Labor force participation during the retirement decade was the dependent variable, race was the independent variable, and income education, and age were the control variables. The basis unit of study was a cohort of 2,111 men aged 60 to 69 in 1976. The study sample and data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Surveys, a joint project of Ohio State University Center for Human Resource Research and the United States Bureau of the Census. The hypothesis of higher white labor force participation rates relative to blacks was rejected. Under the light conditions of control, the dominant pattern was higher rates for blacks. This finding held for upper and lower income status, well and less well educated, and 'young' and 'old' aged blacks. Further research is recommended to determine if these findings are indicative of new patterns of aged labor force participation, i.e. patterns which will result in greater labor force attachment by blacks over time. If future research confirms such a pattern, national manpower legislation and policy will need to be adjusted to be more responsive to aged worker needs.
Bibliography Citation
Crawley, Brenda. Determinants of Labor Force Participation during the Retirement Decade: An Analysis of Aged Black Males and Aged White Males. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign, 1981. DAI-A 42/02, p. 857, August 1981.