The Economic Assimilation of Second-Generation Men: An Analysis of Earnings Trajectories Using Administrative Records.

Previous research on the economic assimilation of recent U.S.-born children of immigrants who form the new second generation has disproportionately focused on their educational attainment and other early-life outcomes.

The Growing Socioeconomic Gap in Lifetime Social Security Retirement Benefits: Current and Future Retirees.

Objectives: Increasing socioeconomic disparities, including in life expectancy, have important implications for the U.S. Social Security program.

Immigrants' Employment Stability Over the Great Recession and Its Aftermath.

We examine immigrant men's employment stability during the Great Recession and its aftermath using a longitudinal approach that draws on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), a nationally representative panel survey of U.S. residents.

Family and Health over the Past Decade: Review of Selected Studies and Areas of Future Inquiry.

Research on the family-health nexus cuts across disciplines, focuses on a broad range of issues, and is set against a backdrop marked by increasing diversity of family structures and households, aging families, and intensifying concerns about health and social inequalities. Over the last decade, a plethora of articles appearing in The Journal of Family and Economic Issues (JFEI) have examined the interplay between family and health. This article attempts to crystallize the primary contributions of this body of work.

Educational Variations in Cohort Trends in the Black-White Earnings Gap Among Men: Evidence From Administrative Earnings Data.

Despite efforts to improve the labor market situation of African Americans, the racial earnings gap has endured in the United States. Most prior studies on racial inequality have considered its cross-sectional or period patterns. This study adopts a demographic perspective to examine the evolution of earnings trajectories among white and black men across cohorts in the United States.

Are You Saving for Retirement? Racial/Ethnic Differentials in Contributory Retirement Savings Plans.

Objectives: How individuals and families accumulate retirement resources during working years is a key aspect of aging with implications for later life. This study examines how much, and by what mechanisms, savings in retirement plans vary by race/ethnicity.

Method: Using representative survey data and linked W-2 tax records, we estimate the probability of participation in employer-sponsored defined contribution (DC) retirement plans with probit regression, and contribution levels with ordinary least squares (OLS) models.

Are They Still Worth It? The Long-Run Earnings Benefits of an Associate Degree, Vocational Diploma or Certificate, and Some College.

Sub-baccalaureate education accounts for most of the expansion in higher education over the last century. Nevertheless, relatively few studies have examined the related long-term financial benefits. Exploiting a rich dataset linking the Survey of Income and Program Participation and administrative earnings records, this study investigates these benefits over a person's early and mid-career and the heterogeneity of these patterns by field of study.

Longevity-Related Options for Social Security: a Microsimulation Approach to Retirement Age and Mortality Adjustments.

We consider the distributional implications of Social Security policy changes in the context of increases in life expectancy and differential mortality. Using a robust microsimulation model, we examine how several options for raising the retirement age, including a scenario that applies a mortality adjustment in combination with such policies, affect different types of individuals and households. Policy changes are simulated for Social Security beneficiaries in 2030 using the Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) microsimulation model.

The Distributional Impact of Social Security Policy Options.

Using microsimulation, we estimate the effects of three policy proposals that would alter Social Security's eligibility rules or benefit structure to reflect changes in women's labor force activity, marital patterns, and differential mortality among the aged. First, we estimate a set of options related to the duration of marriage required to receive divorced spouse and survivor benefits. Second, we estimate the effects of an earnings sharing proposal with survivor benefits, in which benefits are based entirely on earned benefits with spouses sharing their earnings during years of marriage.

Work Disability among Women: The Role of Divorce in a Retrospective Cohort Study.

We assess how divorce through midlife affects the subsequent probability of work-limiting health among U.S. women.

Field of Study in College and Lifetime Earnings in the United States.

Our understanding about the relationship between education and lifetime earnings often neglects differences by field of study. Utilizing data that matches respondents in the to their longitudinal earnings records based on administrative tax information, we investigate the trajectories of annual earnings following the same individuals over 20 years and then estimate the long-term effects of field of study on earnings for U.S.

The Long-Term Health Implications of Marital Disruption: Divorce, Work Limits, and Social Security Disability Benefits Among Men.

We provide new evidence on the long-term impact of divorce on work disability among U.S. men.

Education and Lifetime Earnings in the United States.

Differences in lifetime earnings by educational attainment have been of great research and policy interest. Although a large literature examines earnings differences by educational attainment, research on lifetime earnings--which refers to total accumulated earnings from entry into the labor market until retirement--remains limited because of the paucity of adequate data. Using data that match respondents in the Survey of Income and Program Participation to their longitudinal tax earnings as recorded by the Social Security Administration, we estimate the 50-year work career effects of education on lifetime earnings for men and women.

Contribution dynamics in defined contribution pension plans during the great recession of 2007-2009.

We investigate changes in workers' participation and contributions to defined contribution (DC) plans during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Using longitudinal information from W-2 tax records matched to a nationally representative sample of respondents from the Survey ofl Income and Program Participation, we find that the recent economic downturn had a considerable impact on workers' participation and contributions to DC plans. Thirty-nine percent of 2007 participants decreased contributions to DC plans by more than 10 percent during the Great Recession.

Are proxy interviews associated with biased earnings reports? Marital status and gender effects of proxy.

Social science findings routinely rely on proxy-reported economic data in household surveys. A typical assumption is that this information is not biased compared to self-reports, but empirical findings on the issue are mixed. Using a dataset that links workers in the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation to their W-2 tax records, we estimate the effects of reporting status (proxy vs.

Causal effects of retirement timing on subjective physical and emotional health.

Objectives: This article explores the effects of the timing of retirement on subjective physical and emotional health. Using panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we test 4 theory-based hypotheses about these effects-that retirements maximize health when they happen earlier, later, anytime, or on time.

Method: We employ fixed and random effects regression models with instrumental variables to estimate the short- and long-term causal effects of retirement timing on self-reported health and depressive symptoms.

The implications of marital history change on women's eligibility for Social Security wife and widow benefits, 1990-2009.

Social Security retirement benefits in the United States (US) reflect marital histories and lifetime earnings of current and former married couples. Focusing on the link between marital history and benefit eligibility, this article examines women's marital patterns over the past two decades. Using the 1990 and 2009 Marital History Modules to the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation, descriptive/regression analysis reveals substantial changes in women's marital patterns among baby boomers and generation Xers.

A profile of social security child beneficiaries and their families: sociodemographic and economic characteristics.

Using a rich dataset that links the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation calendar-year 2004 file with Social Security benefit records, this article provides a portrait of the sociodemographic and economic characteristics of Social Security child beneficiaries. We find that the incidence ofbenefit receipt in the child population differs substantially across individual and family-level characteristics. Average benefit amounts also vary across subgroups and benefit types.

Retiring in debt? An update on the 2007 near-retiree cohort.

This research note uses 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) data to update the authors' work reported in a prior article, which used earlier data to assess debt levels among households approaching retirement in 1995 and 2004. The authors assess whether there have been changes in the debt holdings of near-retirees in 2007, a point in time reflecting the start of the recent financial and economic crisis. Results show that debt levels of near-retirees were modestly higher in 2007 than in 2004, overall and across several subgroups.

Lowering social security's duration-of-marriage requirement: distributional effects for future female retirees.

A number of alternatives to Social Security's auxiliary benefit system have been proposed in the context of changes in American family and work patterns. This article focuses on one modification therein-lowering the 10-year duration-of-marriage requirement for divorced spouses. Using a powerful microsimulation model (MINT), we examine the distributional effects of extending spouse and survivor benefit eligibility to 5- and 7-year marriages ending in divorce among female retirees in 2030, a population largely comprised of baby boomers.

Earnings sharing in the U.S. Social Security system: a microsimulation analysis of future female retirees.

Purpose: As part of an ongoing effort to analyze the distributional implications of potential policy reforms to the U.S. Social Security system, we consider the widely discussed reform of earnings sharing.

Retiring in debt? Differences between the 1995 and 2004 near-retiree cohorts.

This article uses the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances to examine the debt holdings of near-retirees (aged 50-61) in 1995 and 2004. Employing a variety of measures of household borrowing, we find that near-retirees in 2004-the leading edge of the baby-boom cohort--had more consumer and housing debt than their counterparts in 1995. We observe a modest increase in the median debt service and debt-to-assets ratios between the two cohorts, but no statistical difference in the average ratios.

Earnings sharing in Social Security: projected impacts of alternative proposals using the MINT model.

Changes in American family and work patterns over the past decades have prompted various policy proposals for changing the structure of Social Security benefits. In this article, we use the Social Security Administration's Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) microsimulation model to project how Social Security benefit amounts would change in response to incorporating earnings sharing into benefit calculations for the population aged 62 or older in 2030 under three hypothetical policy scenarios. The earnings sharing scenarios modeled in the article would reduce benefits for the majority of individuals, although there are important differences among married, divorced, and widowed individuals.