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Who does not intend to retire? Mothers' opportunity costs and compensation at later ages in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2019

Younga Kim Open the ORCID record for Younga Kim [Opens in a new window]  and
Ester Rizzi
Younga Kim*
Affiliation:
Center for Demographic Research, Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Social Policy Research Division, Korea Labor Institute, Sejong, Korea
Ester Rizzi
Affiliation:
Center for Demographic Research, Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Research investigating the association between women's work–family trajectories and their retirement intentions is limited. Studies considering how different institutional conditions affect this association are even more limited. To fill this gap, we use the first three waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, 2004–2009, and apply two-level random effects models with country-level fixed effects to a sample of mothers aged 50–64 years. Our dependent variable is the intention to retire as early as possible. We found that the following two different mechanisms are associated with mothers' early retirement intentions: (a) strategies to compensate for opportunity costs and (b) work attachment. When all other factors are equal, mothers with a work career characterised by interruptions and part-time work intend to work longer than other mothers, indicating the need to compensate for lower lifelong earnings at older ages. Some compensatory strategies are also observed among mothers who are classified as ‘never married’, ‘divorced’ or ‘widowed’, who wish to continue their careers. In other cases, evidence supporting work attachment mechanisms is found; for instance, working when the youngest child is younger than six years predicts the intention to delay retirement. These results change according to the welfare regime, underlining the importance of family policies and pension benefits to counterbalance the effect of opportunity costs on mothers' earnings.

Keywords

retirement intentionsmotherhoodopportunity costswelfare regime
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 40 , Issue 10 , October 2020 , pp. 2128 - 2154
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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