The papers in this volume examine a series of important questions that influence the transition from full time employment to complete retirement. Retirement is shown to be a process as individuals move from career jobs to bridge jobs to being out of the labor force. The articles examine the characteristics of bridge jobs and the employment conditions that older workers prefer. Analysis provided by the authors show the importance of saving throughout work life and how pension plans and retirement saving plans influence the timing of retirement.

Institutional contexts shape learning participation throughout the course of life. Combining micro-data on adult education from 26 European countries with country-level indicators on retirement systems in multi-level logistic regression models, the focus is on analysis of participation in non-formal learning among people aged 50–64 and its interactions with retirement policies. The analysis makes use of the largest sample of European countries used so far for exploring the issue. For the first time, gender differences in retirement policies are considered. The results imply that for all women and highly educated men, participation in non-formal training is higher when retirement age in the country is set at 65 years or higher. However, men with less education do not profit from a higher retirement age because their training participation remains unaffected by retirement policies. In the current analysis, training participation in older age groups remains unaffected by the generosity of pensions. The results outline gender differences in learning participation in older age groups. Also, after the age of 50, men with a low education are at particular risk of labour market exclusion and unemployment because the retirement age in European countries keeps rising and technological advancements make additional demands on workers’ skills.

What governs labour force participation in later life and why is it so different across countries? Health and labour force participation in older ages are not strongly linked, but we observe a large variation across countries in old-age labour force participation. This points to the important role of country-specific regulations governing pension receipt and old-age labour force participation. In addition to the statutory eligibility age for a pension, such country-specific regulations include: earnings tests that limit the amount of earnings when pension benefits are received; the amount of benefit deductions for early retirement; the availability of part-time pensions before normal retirement; special regulations that permit early retirement for certain population groups; and either subsidies or extra costs for employers if they keep older employees in their labour force. This paper asks two questions: Can we link a relatively low labour force participation at ages 60–64 to country-specific regulations that make early retirement attractive? and Can we link a relatively high labour force participation at ages 65–74 to country-specific regulations that make late retirement attractive? To answer these questions, we compared the experiences in a set of developed countries around the world in order to understand better the impact of country-specific rules and laws on work and retirement behaviour at older ages and, by consequence, on the financial sustainability of pension systems.

Many EU countries have been carrying out substantial state pension reforms since the mid-1990s. This article studies whether the reforms that were carried out in ten EU countries before and after the 2008 financial crisis are different. This is done through an analysis of the different elements of these reforms and also by comparing pension entitlements after each set of reforms. The main conclusion is that the pre-crisis reforms were much stronger and had a more negative impact on women than the post-crisis reforms. It is harder to determine whether this represents a temporary break in the reform process or a permanent change in the orientation of pension reforms in these ten countries.

Europe's pensions landscape has changed dramatically since the 1990s. This paper tries to assess better the impact of these changes using a broad social sustainability framework. Pension wealth estimates for a variety of hypothetical cases are used to assess the ability of systems to alleviate poverty and maintain living standards, while setting out how reforms could change future costs and relative entitlements for different generations. By focusing on all prospective transfers rather than those at retirement and by looking into the interaction between entitlements and labour participation, this approach provides additional insights into the impact of reforms. Our estimates suggest that generosity has fallen significantly, but remains strong in many countries. However, moves to link benefits to contributions have raised adequacy concerns for certain groups and strengthened the need for longer careers. Although reforms have helped address fiscal challenges, in many countries pressures remain strong and further reforms are likely.

This study uses a unique data set of retiree characteristics and salary histories for administrators, teachers, and non-professional employees of the Denver Public School Retirement System (DPSRS) to analyze surplus deferred compensation for DPSRS and four state K-12 defined benefit pension plans. We find sizable levels of surplus deferred compensation for each plan, with significant differences across plans, job classes, and age groups. Across plans, differences in cost of living allowances impact the expected present value of retirement benefits more than benefit table differences when controlling for each respective factor. Somewhat surprisingly, the plans in our study with the largest present value of future benefits had lower employee contribution rates. Pension wealth for reduced benefits showed larger wealth accrual at younger ages than full, unreduced benefits, and younger cohorts starting work at an earlier age received significantly higher surplus deferred compensation.