WOMENS EMPLOYMENT HISTORY AND THEIR POST-RETIREMENT HEALTH AND RESOURCES

The purpose of this study is to assess the degree to which the advanta ges apparently accruing to employed women are maintained into the post -retirement years. That is, do women who were employed carry with them into the retirement years more social and financial resources and do they maintain better health than women who remained largely outside th e work force? The importance of this issue increases as greater number s of women enter and remain in the work force and as wt population age s. The study uses a longitudinal cohort design and employs the data fr om the National Center for Health Statistics' Longitudinal Study on Ag ing. This analysis uses the core questions from the 1984 National Heal th Interview Survey, the Supplement on Aging questions from 1984 and t he follow-up data on mortality from the National Death Index from 1984 -1990. The data include the 4667 female respondents who were 70 years or older in 1984. Overall, the results suggest that women who have mor e recent paid employment have better health in their later years than women with no employment or no recent employment. However, for social and financial resources the direction of the relationships vary. For e xample, women with more recent employment have less social resources i n the form of spouse and living children; however, they have more soci al resources in the form of social contacts with both family and frien ds. Having no history of paid employment increases women's risk of liv ing in poverty and lacking private health insurance, but increases the chances that they own their own home.