Introduction and Summary 1
Declining Old-Age Mortality and the Health of the Aged 2
Aging and the Ability to Work 5
Occupational Effects on Health and Work Capacity 8
Involuntary Early Retirement and Consumption 11
Time-Series Analysis of the Effect of Social Security on Labor Supply 14
The Adequacy of Life Insurance among the Elderly 16
Public Policy Implications of Declining Old-Age Mortality 19
Mortality Trends among the Aged 20
A Formal Model of Mortality reductions 27
Evidence on Changing Morbidity and Health Needs 39
Microeconometric Evidence 45
Conclusions 49
Comment by Joseph Newhouse 51
Aging and the Ability to Work: Policy Issues and Recent Trends 59
Analytical Issues in Health and Retirement 59
Trends in Mortality and Retirement 71
Recent Trends in Health and Ability to Work 74
Additional Evidence on Health and the Ability to Work 83
Changes in the Nature of Employment 90
Interpreting the Evidence 94
Directions for Retirement Policy 96
Comment by Thomas J. Espenshade 97
Occupational Effects on the Health and Work Capacity of Older Men 103
Industry, Occupation, and Work Capacity 107
Self-reported Health Impairment and Work Status 130
Summary 139
Comment by Richard V. Burkhauser 142
Involuntary Early Retirement and Consumption 151
The Data Set 157
Characteristics of Retirement and Food consumption 160
Food Consumption over Time 165
Conclusions 174
Comment by Edward Lazear 175
Life-Cycle Labor Supply and Social Security: A Time-Series Analysis 183
Trends in Labor Supply and Social Security since World War II 187
Life-Cycle Labor Supply, Social Security, and the Identification Problem 190
Data and Empirical Implementation 197
Results 210
Summary 218
Appendix: Algorithm for Computation of Social Security Wealth 219
Comment by Joseph F. Quinn 220
Life Insurance of the Elderly: Its Adequacy and Determinant 229
The Adequacy of Life Insurance: A Conceptual Framework 232
A Model of Life Insurance Demand 248
Econometric Specification 255
Empirical Results 257
Conclusions 261
Appendix: Derivation of the Bivariate Mills Ratio Sample Selection Correction 262
Conference Participants 269
Index 271