Industry News

On July 19, 2022, the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College published its issue brief, How to Think About Recent Trends in the Average Retirement Age? According to the issue brief, after a century of declining work activity among older men, the rate of labor force activity stabilized in the 1980s and increased in the 1990s. This shift was due to changes in retirement plans, nature of work, improvements in education levels, Social Security and health coverage, among other factors. The brief also examines the labor force activity among both older men and older women and builds a measure of the average retirement age. Over time, the average retirement age has increased by about three years.

The brief concludes, “while the labor force activity of older individuals has increased significantly in recent decades, partici­pation is still below where it was when Medicare was enacted in 1965 and further increases in the average retirement age seem relatively unlikely. In short, the recent turnaround provides little basis for changing the parameters of Social Security or Medicare.”

The brief is available here.