New paper from the Social Science Research Network

"Lifetime Job Demands, Work Capacity at Older Ages, and Social Security Benefit Claiming Decisions"
CRR WP 2014-15

LAUREN HERSCH NICHOLAS, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Institute for Social Research (ISR)
Email: lnichola@umich.edu

We use Health and Retirement Study data linked to the Department of Labor’s O*Net classification system to examine the relationship between lifetime exposure to occupational demands and retirement behavior. We consistently found that both non-routine cognitive analytic and non-routine physical demands were associated with worse health, earlier labor force exit, and increased use of Social Security Disability Insurance. The growing share of workers in jobs with high levels of cognitive demand may contribute to growth in DI use.