Partners in marriage: An analysis of husbands' and wives' retirement behavior

The goal of this analysis is to compare the retirement behavior of husbands and wives. Hypotheses are offered to describe two sets of factors associated with retirement of husbands and wives. These are included in the usual modes of retirement hypothesis and the new modes of retirement hypothesis. Using data from the 1992 Health and Retirement Survey, multinomial models are estimated to assess whether various personal, spousal, and familial factors are related to retirement status. Results indicate that in addition to personal characteristics, wives' retirement status is related to familial factors, economic resources, and spouses' personal characteristics supporting the new modes of retirement hypothesis. Husbands differ mainly in that familial and spousal attributes have more limited relationships with retirement behavior thereby supporting the usual modes of retirement hypothesis.