Briefs

JTF#5  

Introduction 

In the past year, as the economy has weakened and unemployment has risen, the labor force participation rate for older workers (aged 55-64) has jumped by 2.0 percentage points - an increase unprecedented in post-war U.S. economic history. Recessions typically see very slow or even negative growth in labor force participation. A likely factor contributing to this dramatic change is the steep decline in the stock market that has occurred since the spring of 2000. Plunging stock portfolios may have caused some older workers to postpone retirement and convinced some early retirees to rejoin the labor force.

For full paper in PDF

Andrew D. Eschtruth is the Associate Director for External Relations at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR). Jonathan Gemus is a Research Assistant at the CRR. The authors wish to thank Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution for helpful comments concerning the tentative nature of any conclusion about the relationship between labor force participation and stock market values.

Tags: Briefs, Work and Retirement,

Click to add your tags...,

or Close