Understanding the
Aging Workforce
Defining a Research Agenda
_____
Susan T. Fiske and Tara Becker, Editors
Committee on Understanding the Aging Workforce
and Employment at Older Ages
Committee on Population
Committee on National Statistics
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and
Education
Consensus Study Report
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This activity was supported by contracts between the National Academy of Sciences and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (G-2019-12542), with additional support from the National Academy of Sciences W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fund. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Understanding the Aging Workforce: Defining a Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26173.
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COMMITTEE ON UNDERSTANDING THE AGING WORKFORCE AND EMPLOYMENT AT OLDER AGES
SUSAN T. FISKE (Chair), Princeton University
EMMA AGUILA, Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California
PETER B. BERG, School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Michigan State University
AXEL BÖRSCH-SUPAN, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging; Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe; Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy
COURTNEY C. COILE, Wellesley College
ERNEST GONZALES, Silver School of Social Work, New York University
JACQUELYN B. JAMES, Sloan Research Network on Aging & Work, Lynch School of Education, Boston College
PHYLLIS E. MOEN, University of Minnesota
DAVID NEUMARK, Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy, University of California, Irvine
MO WANG, Warrington College of Business, University of Florida
TARA BECKER, Study Director
MARY GHITELMAN, Senior Program Assistant
MALAY K. MAJMUNDAR, Director, Committee on Population
COMMITTEE ON POPULATION
ANNE R. PEBLEY (Chair), Department of Community Health Sciences, Department of Sociology, California Center for Population Research, Bixby Center on Population and Reproductive Health, University of California, Los Angeles
EMILY M. AGREE, Department of Sociology and Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins University
DEBORAH BALK, Marxe School of Public and International Affairs and CUNY Institute for Demographic Research, Baruch College of the City University of New York
ANN K. BLANC, Social and Behavioral Science Research, Population Council, New York City, Retired
COURTNEY C. COILE, Department of Economics, Wellesley College
SONALDE DESAI, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland; Professor and Centre Director, NCAER-National Data Innovation Centre, New Delhi
DANA A. GLEI, Research Consultant, Georgetown University
ROBERT A. HUMMER, Department of Sociology and Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
HEDWIG (HEDY) LEE, Department of Sociology Washington University in St. Louis
TREVON LOGAN, Department of Economics, The Ohio State University
JENNIFER J. MANLY, Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain, Department of Neurology, Columbia University
JENNA E. NOBLES, Department of Sociology and the Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison
FERNANDO RIOSMENA, Department of Geography and the Institute of Behavioral Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
DAVID T. TAKEUCHI, School of Social Work, Department of Sociology, and the Center for the Study of Demography and Ecology, University of Washington
MALAY K. MAJMUNDAR, Director
COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS
ROBERT M. GROVES (Chair), Office of the Provost, Georgetown University
LAWRENCE D. BOBO, Department of Sociology, Harvard University
ANNE C. CASE, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Emerita
MICK P. COUPER, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
JANET M. CURRIE, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
DIANA FARRELL, JPMorgan Chase Institute, Washington, DC
ROBERT GOERGE, Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago
ERICA L. GROSHEN, The ILR School, Cornell University
HILARY HOYNES, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley
DANIEL KIFER, The Pennsylvania State University
SHARON LOHR, School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Arizona State University, Emerita
JEROME P. REITER, Duke University
JUDITH A. SELTZER, University of California, Los Angeles, Emerita
C. MATTHEW SNIPP, School of the Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University
ELIZABETH A. STUART, Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
JEANNETTE WING, Data Science Institute, Columbia University
BRIAN A. HARRIS-KOJETIN, Director
MELISSA C. CHIU, Deputy Director
CONSTANCE F. CITRO, Senior Scholar
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Preface
The U.S. population is aging and in the decade preceding the COVID-19 pandemic an increasing number of retirement-age adults were remaining in the labor force. The extended working lives of these older adults has the potential to improve their overall health and financial stability, as well as alleviate the economic impact of an older population on public programs, such as Social Security and Medicare. In addition to these economic impacts, their continued presence in the labor force could affect workplace cultures and employer beliefs about the benefits (and drawbacks) of hiring older adults. However, these effects are shaped by disparities in opportunities to work, which expand at older ages, leaving some older adults unable to benefit from labor market changes that enable participation beyond traditional retirement ages. To better understand the impact of these changes, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation began its Working Longer research program, which sponsored a range of studies on a broad array of topics associated with the social, economic, and policy implications of an aging workforce.
Over the course of a decade, the Working Longer program expanded our knowledge about the extended working lives of older adults. As this program wound down, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation requested that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies) undertake a study to evaluate the current status of research on work at older ages, identify key areas for future research, and suggest methodological and data infrastructure needs to move this new research agenda forward. In response to this request, the National Academies appointed the Committee on Understanding the Aging Workforce and Employment at Older Ages (under the standing committees of the Committee on Population and the Committee on National Statistics) to carry out this task. Ten scholars representing a broad array of disciplines—health economics, labor relations, labor economics, organizational psychology, social psychology, sociology, demography, and social work—were included on the committee, which met six times over a ten-month period.
The committee first met in April 2020, during the national economic shutdown imposed by the federal government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the pandemic, this committee became one of the first at the National Academies to shift to an all-remote consensus study model, which introduced new challenges and opportunities for the committee’s work. In many ways, these paralleled the pandemic-based challenges and changes that continue to reverberate and shift the structure and nature of work throughout the labor force—including for older workers—as this report goes into publication. The full scope of these changes and their effects on work at older ages remain open questions for future researchers to address.
This report presents an extensive review of a wide-ranging topic and provides a deeper understanding not only of the effects of individual characteristics on work at older ages but also of the effects of current contexts, as well
as the ways in which these effects shape and are shaped by the historical workplace, social, economic, and policy contexts in which people live their lives. The first part of this report describes the evolving older workforce and the committee’s conceptual model for understanding transitions between work and retirement at older ages. In the second part of the report, the committee reviews the literature covering the effects of individual-level characteristics and workplace, age discrimination, labor market, and social policy contexts on the extended work lives of older adults. Finally, in the third part of the report, the committee summarizes its findings and presents a new research agenda that, if acted upon, will substantially improve our understanding of work at older ages.
This study would not have been possible without the contributions of many people. Special thanks must be extended to members of the study committee, who devoted extensive time, thought, and energy to this endeavor. The committee received useful information and insights from presentations from outside experts at open sessions of committee meetings. We thank Katharine Abraham (University of Maryland), Michele Battisti (University of Glasgow), Tyson Brown (Duke University), Joseph Coughlin (MIT), Sara Czaja (Cornell University), Gwen Fisher (Colorado State University), Eric French (University College London), Mary Gatta (City University of New York), Kendra Jason (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), Laurie McCann (AARP), Kathleen McGarry (University of California, Los Angeles), Olivia Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania), Michael North (New York University), and Ursula Staudinger (Columbia University).
A number of staff members of the National Academies made significant contributions to the report. Mary Ghitelman made sure that committee meetings ran smoothly, and she and Rebecca Krone assisted in preparing the manuscript, and otherwise provided key administrative and logistical support; Kirsten Sampson Snyder managed the report review process; and Malay Majmundar, director of the Committee on Population, and Brian HarrisKojetin, director of the Committee on National Statistics, provided valuable guidance and oversight. We also thank Marc DeFrancis for his editing of the report.
This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We thank the following individuals for their review of this report: Cynthia M. Beall, Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve University; Margaret E. Beier, Department of Psychological Sciences, Rice University; Laura L. Carstensen, Department of Psychology, Stanford University; Kène Henkins, Work & Retirement, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, Ageing, Retirement and the Lifecourse, University Medical Center Groningen, and Sociology of Retirement, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam; Richard Johnson, Program on Retirement Policy, Urban Institute; Eden King, Department of Psychology, George Mason University; Joanna N. Lahey, Public Service and Administration, Texas A&M University; Nancy Morrow-Howell, Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging, Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St Louis; and Kathleen Mullen, Center for Disability Research, RAND Corporation.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Mark D. Hayward, Population Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, and Jonathan S. Skinner, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College. He was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.
Susan T. Fiske, Chair
Tara Becker, Study Director
Committee on Understanding the Aging Workforce and Employment at Older Ages
Contents
Committee Formation and Statement of Task
Situating Individual-Level Characteristics Within Contexts
Boundaries on the Scope of the Report
Understanding Work at Older Ages
2 The Emerging Older Workforce
How Trends in Labor Force Participation Are Gendered
Employment Characteristics of Older Workers
Work Preferences of Older Workers
The Changing Composition of the Older Workforce
Diversity in Labor Force Participation Patterns
The Initial Effects of COVID-19 on Labor Force Participation and Employment
Trends in Health and Disability
3 Work and Retirement Pathways
A Conceptual Framework of Work and Retirement Pathways
The Proximal Forces that Shape the Work and Retirement Pathways
Disparities and Heterogeneity in Work and Retirement Pathways
Challenges and Future Research Directions
4 Individual and Social Factors That Influence Employment and Retirement Transitions
Meaning of Work, Satisfaction with Work, and Sense of Purpose
Family and Household Structure
Cross-Cutting Themes of Inequity: A Life Course Perspective
Implications for Future Research
6 Age Discrimination, One Source of Inequality
Face-to-Face Ageism: How People View Older Workers
Assessing the Accuracy of Ageist Stereotypes: Cognitive Capability in Later Life
Workplace Age Discrimination and Exclusion: Older Workers’ Reported Experience
Age Discrimination in the Labor Market for Older Workers
7 The Labor Market for Older Workers
The Labor Supply of Older Workers
Factors Primarily Affecting the Demand for Older Workers
The Balance Between Labor Supply and Labor Demand
Non-Age-Specific Policies That Support Work
Age-Specific Policies That Support Work
Policies to Support the Financial Security of Disabled and Retired Workers
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Boxes, Figures, and Tables
BOXES
2-1 Measuring Employment and Self-Employment among Older Workers
5-1 The Effects of COVID-19 on Workplace Practices and Older Workers
6-1 Theories of Ageism’s Origins, with Implications for Interventions
8-1 International Social Security (ISS)
8-2 The COVID-19 Crisis and Public Policy
9-1 The COVID-19 Pandemic and Work at Older Ages
FIGURES
2-1 The age distribution of employed adults in the U.S. by gender, 2000–2020
2-4 2019 labor force participation, adults ages 65 and over by country and gender
2-5 Gender difference in labor force participation rates in 2019 by country
2-6 Labor force participation by age, gender, and birth cohort, ages 25–79
2-7 Self-employment in current main job, by age and gender, 2004 and 2019
2-8 Percent of employed adults ages 50 and over working part-time, by age and gender, 2004 and 2019
2-9 Demographic characteristics of the older labor force, ages 50 and over, 2004 vs. 2019
2-10 Labor force participation among adults ages 25 and over by gender and nativity, 2004–2019
2-16 Percent of U.S. adults reporting their health as fair or poor, by gender and age, 2000–2020
3-1 Labor force status among men in the private sector, by year, 1992–2016
3-2 Labor force status among women in the private sector, by year, 1992–2016
3-3 A conceptual framework of work and retirement pathways
3-4 Theory of planned behavior
6-1 Change and predicted change in implicit and explicit attitudes, 2007–2020
7-1 Factors affecting labor demand for and labor supply of older workers
7-2 Mobility rates by age, CPS ASEC (2019)
TABLES
2-1 Distribution of Workers across Occupation Groups by Age Group, 2004 vs. 2019
Annex Table 2-1 Age Distribution Within Occupation Group Among Men, 2004
Annex Table 2-2 Age Distribution Within Occupation Group Among Men, 2019
Annex Table 2-3 Age Distribution Within Occupation Group Among Women, 2004
Annex Table 2-4 Age Distribution Within Occupation Group Among Women, 2019
4-2 Income and Wealth Changes by Income Level
4-3 Changes in Median Income by Race and Ethnic Origin and Income Percentile, 1970–2016
4-4 Indicators of Possible Financial Insecurity in Old Age
5-2 Age-Related Flexibility Practices Shaping Later Adult Work
