THE WORK AND RETIREMENT DECISIONS OF OLDER WOMEN - A LITERATURE-REVIEW

This article reviews the economic literature on the work and retiremen t decisions of older women. Economic studies generally find that marri ed women respond to the financial reward for work (for example, wages) in making their work and retirement decisions, but that they do not r espond to unearned income and wealth (for example, the value of lifeti me Social Security benefits). Unmarried women are found to respond to all types of financial variables. Most economic studies find that the family plays only a limited role in the work and retirement decisions of women. The retirement status of the husband does influence the wife 's retirement decision, but the health status of the husband does not. The presence of dependents in the household, regardless of whether th ey are children or parents, is not found to influence work and retirem ent among women. The relevance of these results to Social Security pol icy is discussed. There are a number of reasons to be cautious about t he results. The literature to date is small; it is based on data that are deficient in some respects, and it contains studies that have meth odological problems. These problems are discussed and prospects for fu ture research are explored.