Retirement Expectations among Dual-Earner Couples

Jonathan Jackson, University of Maryland

This paper examines how dual-earning couples navigate the retirement transition differently now that women’s and men’s work lives have become more similar. As the retirement transition has become more complex, understanding how and when people retire requires researchers and policymakers to be attuned to the family lives in which individuals are embedded. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, I look at four cohorts when they are in their early 50s, comparing how much the retirement expectations of spouses influence each other and if the level of influence is greater for women who have been more attached to the labor force. Results show that the expectation to work after age 65 for both men and women of dual-earning couples has steadily increased across cohorts. Retirement expectations of both men and women have become less responsive to spousal factors for people from baby boom cohorts than people from earlier cohorts.