Aging & Social Change: Ninth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Coordination of retirement decisions of older couples (married or cohabiting), known as joint retirement, is discussed in the literature on the determinants of retirement decisions. There is a hypothesis that not only do spouses consult the timing of retirement, but they also coordinate the dates. While the hypothesis of joint retirement was generally confirmed for developed countries, only few studies provide statistics on its prevalence. Among the ones that do, it is found that approximately one in twelve couples retires jointly and one in three couples retires within a year. Our paper aim was the empirical analysis of the incidence of joint retirement in Poland. Based on the Labour Force Survey (BAEL) individual data on respondents aged 55-69 we found that more than half people that are economically inactive - neither working nor looking for a job - life in a household with an inactive spouse. For the period between 3rd quarter 2016 and 3rd quarter 2017 we observed that around 11 percent of retirement flows could be treated as joint retirement. Additionally, the results of logic models suggest that retirement of a spouse increases significantly chances that a respondent retires as well. The effect in Poland seems to be stronger for women.