The Average Retirement Age – An Update

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The brief’s key findings are:

  • Labor force activity among older Americans began rising in the mid-1980s due to:
    • changing Social Security incentives;
    • the shift to 401(k) plans; and
    • improving health, longevity, and education.
  • Updated data, however, suggest that these factors may have played themselves out.
  • As a result, the average retirement age has increased only slightly in the last 10 years: to 64 for men and 62 for women.