Estudo empírico indutivo, que verifica como e percebida a velhice e a aposentadoria, e os estados subjetivos que tais fatos sugerem. Realiza entrevistas semi-estruturadas com sete professoras aposentadas. A analise revela que a velhice e uma fase critica e a aposentadoria um fato traumático. As entrevistadas sentem-se marginalizadas, ressentidas pelas perdas sofridas e falam do medo, da solidão, e da ausência de perspectivas futuras. Com esses dados elabora então, um instrumento de pesquisa que aplica a uma população de 100 indivíduos, sorteados aleatoriamente e distribuídos entre 5 faixas etárias com a idade variando entre 18 e 82 anos. Constata que entre os aposentados com mais de 59 anos, ha uma redução da auto-estima e da possibilidade de realização de ação, além da dificuldade de se reorganizarem e constituirem novos valores nesta etapa da vida. Entre aqueles com menos de 59 anos, verifica a presença de conflito, através do qual o individuo expressa suas dificuldades em relação aos aspectos investigados. Sugere a realização de outros estudos para maior investigação dos fatores que possibilitem uma velhice satisfatória e assegurem uma maior integração desses indivíduos a comunidade / This ls an empiric inductive study that checks the role now old age retirement and the subjective states that such facts suggest. The procedure started with partially structured interviews with seven retired lady teachers. The analysis has revealed that the old is a critical period and that retirement is a traumatic fact. The subjects of the interview felt alienated, expressed regret losses, and spoke experiences of fear and loneliness about a of future projects.After suc11 collected data, we built a research tool that was applied to a hundred subjects, chosen at random, and distributed among five age levels, the age varying from eighteen to eighty-two. Among the retired individuals above fifty-nine, we noticed the reduction of self-esteem and possibility of acting, and we observed their difficulty In reorganizing new values. Among the retired above fifty-nine, we noticed a conflict, through which the Individual expresses his difficulties related to the researched aspects. consequently, any clinical intervention, at a therapeutic or preventive level, cannot Ignore the confrontation of the stereotype of a quiet old age and the experienced reality, for, althougt1 we believe that the Individual may continue to develop, even at this stage of life, we noticed that the researched aspects are difficult to deal with and are noticed in a negative way by the researched population. We do hope that these results can motivate other researchers, towards th1s group of society. We should like that those aspects that can guaratee a better old age and a bigger integration of those individuals to the community could be more largely researched

Thesis advisor: Alicia H. Munnell / Retirement plans for state employees have over $2 trillion in assets, a significant portion of the U.S. retirement market. In the last 10 years, seven states have transitioned their employee retirement plans from traditional annuity-providing defined benefit pensions to individual account-style defined contribution plans. While private-sector employers save money in transitioning to a defined contribution plan, states actually lose money when switching. Why state governments choose to sponsor retirement plans that cost both the state and its employees money is the central question of this study. Several financial and demographic variables are considered; the only variable that cannot be ruled out is political ideology. The probit panel regression finds that states with Republican-controlled governments are far more likely to switch to a defined contribution plan than states with mixed or Democrat-controlled governments. This conclusion illuminates the central importance of unions in the political process of public plan decision-making and reveals the importance of potential economics losses that result from sponsoring defined contribution plans. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2006. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Shannon Seitz / Issues pertaining to low income workers are of the upmost interest to policy makers. In the mid 1990s, the issue of welfare recipients and work was at the forefront of public policy, as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was passed. One of the many goals of the policy was to "end the dependence of needy families on government benefits" by encouraging work and ultimately higher wages. The first paper of my dissertation explores the processes by which work leads to wage growth for welfare recipients. I find that welfare recipients have similar returns to tenure and experience as non-recipients and that tenure has higher returns than experience for these women. Because of this, policies that discourage leaving work, like a work requirement, are more effective encouraging wage growth than policies discouraging welfare use, like a time-limit. A decade later, the low savings rates of low income workers has led policy makers within the Obama administration to consider making Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) available to all workers. The second paper of this dissertation examines how likely low individual workers are to participate in these plans. We find that low-income workers not currently offered voluntary retirement savings plans are less likely to participate than those currently offered those plans. The paper indicates policy makers should be wary of basing estimates of participation in the offered IRAs on current participation, as this may overestimate the participation rate by up to 25 percent. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis advisor: Jonathan Reuter / This dissertation is comprised of three essays that focus on the role of overseeing entities in retirement plans. In the first essay, I study the role of trustee and non-trustee service providers as well as the composition of a firm's board of directors in overseeing 401(k) plans. I ask whether differences in the number and type of these 401(k) plan overseeing entities can explain differences in 401(k) plan performance and structural characteristics. Using a proprietary dataset of 401(k) plans, I find that having more trustee and non-trustee service providers results in better menu performance. However, these findings are not robust when benchmark adjusting performance. Second, I find that having more non-trustee service providers leads to less menu diversification and higher fund level expenses, but lower total plan expense. Last, having more trustee service providers and a greater percentage of insiders on a firm's board of directors results in a more generous company match. My results suggest that 401(k) plans are significantly impacted by oversight decisions, and that improving oversight quality may be a more effective way to mitigate 401(k) plan losses than focusing on increasing financial literacy of plan participants. In the second essay, I examine the nature of compensation for 401(k) plan consultants and ask whether variations in the form of compensation explain variations in 401(k) plan costs and menu performance. Using a proprietary dataset of 401(k) plans, I find that 401(k) plans which hire a consultant experience lower fund level fees and higher after-fee returns if the consultant does not participate in revenue sharing arrangements. In exchange for their services to improve plans, consultants without revenue sharing arrangements charge higher fees to offset their revenue losses from not having opaque arrangements. This results in higher administrative expenses for plans. The net effect is a 9.6 basis point annual gain for the average plan participant or a 24.7 basis point annual gain for a plan participant invested in the default menu choice, assuming that employees pay the higher administrative expense. My findings are robust to a narrower definition of a consultant, additional controls for investment expertise, retirement expertise and bargaining power, falsification tests, and propensity score matching. Overall, my findings suggest that 401(k) plan menu design may be improved through the use of a consultant if the consultant does not suffer from conflicts of interest. In the third essay, I empirically test whether governance mitigates underfunding in US public pension plans. Traditional governance proxies in public sector defined benefit plans focus on plan board of directors. However, plan responsibilities extend beyond the board and are addressed by state or plan policies and by other entities involved in pension oversight. Using unique governance survey data for US public pension plans, I measure governance in an agency theory framework and in a theoretical best practices framework. In the first framework, governance proxies include state and plan policies while in the second, governance proxies include the distribution of oversight responsibilities. I find that the most important governance policies are those that encourage sponsor commitment to paying required annual contributions. I also find that theoretical best practices do not mitigate plan underfunding. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

Thesis advisor: Andrew Beauchamp / Thesis advisor: Mathis Wagner / This dissertation considers changes of health insurance system of United States that affect health outcomes and labor market outcomes of population. The first chapter examines how Medicaid policy aimed to improve health status of low-income parents affects the health outcomes of young children. Estimates from variations in Medicaid rules across states and over time, show that there exist positive spillover effects on children from Medicaid expansions targeting parents. The child mortality declines more in states with higher level of generosity in Medicaid policy and the effect is larger among black children. Simulations indicate that recent Medicaid expansion under Affordable Care Act Reform can deepen the existing child mortality disparity across states due to different adoption of Medicaid expansion for low income adult population. The second chapter examines Massachusetts health care reform and its impact on labor market outcomes of older males approaching retirement. I find that older males are more likely to remain in full-time employed status rather to choose early retirement, and part-time employment increased only among low-income population who are eligible for subsidized health insurance. The results suggests that there exists employment-lock effect from increase of employers providing employersponsored health insurances following the reform. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis advisor: Donald Cox / This dissertation contains three essays. It provides analysis on issues concerning about family economics. The first essay investigates issues about intergenerational transfer in China. Does parental support in China respond to low income of the elderly? Intergenerational transfers from adult children to their parents are thought to contribute a significant portion of old-age support in China. With a fast growing elder population and an increasing old-age dependency ratio, it is important to understand these transfers. This study investigates the determining factors of intergenerational transfers in China. This line of research is still lacking due to the scarcity of detailed household data. Past studies on private transfers in China could not differentiate between intergenerational versus intragenerational transfers. Using pilot data from the newly released China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), I found that around half of the sampled households received transfers from adult children and the amount of transfer is as much as two-thirds of household income per capita. Data also showed that poorer households are more likely to receive transfers. Data suggested that people in the poor province (Gansu) have a higher degree of dependence on adult children, as the source of providing old-age support and living arrangement. Seeing how private transfers are large, widespread, and responsive to income, the benefits from instituting appropriate public policy would likely accrue in part to younger generations by lessening their burden of familial support. The second essay examines the effect of social father on the well-being of out-of-wedlock children. Social fathers, defined as stepfathers or unrelated cohabiting romantic partners of biological mothers, have become more widespread as a result of the increasing out-of-wedlock childbearing. With more young children living with social fathers, it is important to understand the effect of social fathers on the well-being of children. Previous research focused more on such effect on older children or adolescents. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), I find that children with social fathers scored around three points less in a cognitive ability test than children living only with biological mothers. I used the propensity score matching method to address the selection issue for which the child's mother self-selected into having a new partner. Social fathers will be more common because of the widespread of non-marital births. Any negative effect caused by the social fathers will affect a large portion of child population. The third essay evaluates the association between the timing of parenthood and the timing of retirement. Is late parenting associated with late retirement? The trend of parenthood timing is under drastic change. The birth rate for women aged 30-34 rose from 52.3 births per 1000 women in 1975 to 96.5 births per 1000 women in 2010 while the birth rate for women aged 20-24 went down from 113 births to 90 births per 1000 women during the same period. The children may still be very young when their parents enter their retirement age. In the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), 20% of respondents' children lived with them while nearly 30% of these children were below 18 years of age. Despite the potential importance of this issue, economists have not done much research on it. Using the HRS, this study found that parents who have their first child before or at age 30 retire earlier than parents who have their first child after age 30. This positive association holds for different sub-groups of the sample. With significant portion of people delaying their parenthood and a large group of people entering their retiring age, it is very important for policy makers and economists to understand how the timing of parenthood associates with the timing of retirement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

The socio-economic challenges caused by ageing populations, are encouraging many countries to re-evaluate the place of older people in society and to adopt measures to encourage active ageing. Brazil and the UK will have similar proportions of people aged 60 or over as a percentage of the total population by 2050. As a consequence of this, changes to retirement policies in the UK and Brazil, aim to make the welfare system more financially sustainable. It is therefore relevant to study the retirement patterns of occupational groups where their members hold specialised skills, knowledge and have the scope to remain active for longer. This study aims to compare the transition to retirement of academics and their experiences of professional continuity thereafter, in Brazil and the UK. A mixed methods approach combining an on-line survey and in-depth narrative interviews was used to address the research questions. The study found that among Brazilian and UK retired academics there was a desire for a continuity of professional identity, and most tended to experience some professional continuity following retirement. How the retirees engaged in academic activities varied among individuals; the amount of activities usually related to time in retirement, age and health status. It was noted that in the UK there was more scope for alternative retirement arrangements than in Brazil. Life satisfaction in retirement was associated with financial stability, enhanced freedom and the possibility to actively use academic skills and knowledge. The findings suggest that universities’ retirement policies should be made more transparent and, in some cases, reviewed. Additionally, retirees should be encouraged to prepare for retirement to facilitate their adjustment. It is suggested that future research should investigate the retirement of women in academia, the retirement policies of universities and the retirement of academics in other countries.

Objectives: This thesis includes two distinct pieces of work. The purpose of the systematic review was to address a gap in the literature by examining available evidence relating to the use of Emotional Regulation (ER) strategies (avoidance, problem solving, reappraisal, rumination, and suppression) on the wellbeing of older people. The empirical paper aimed to examine the role of ER strategies and ageism on adjustment and retirement satisfaction. It also sought to examine the impact of other contextual factors such as financial status, health, and social support on retirement wellbeing. Methods: A systematic review of cross-sectional studies examining a quantitative association between one aspect of ER (avoidance, problem-solving, reappraisal, rumination and /or suppression) and a self-reported quantitative well-being measure was completed via a comprehensive literature search of electronic databases. Studies were included if the participants were 60 years or older and without cognitive impairment. Wellbeing was explored in a broader way not only including measures of the absence of illness but positive constructs such as positive affect, positive social relations or autonomy. In the empirical study, participants completed a postal survey which included ER strategies, attitudes to ageing, adjustment and satisfaction with retirement and contextual factors such as financial status, health and social support. A series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the independent contributions of ER strategies and attitudes to aging to adjustment to, and satisfaction with, retirement. Results: Twenty studies met inclusion criteria for the systematic review. The relationship between life satisfaction, positive emotion and ER was explored by four studies while nineteen out of twenty studied the relationship between ER and anxiety and depression. Only a conclusion about ER and negative mood measures could be made given the scarcity of research examining the association between ER and positive psychological concepts. Rumination was found to be the ER strategy most strongly associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression in OP population, while mixed results were found for avoidance, problem solving, suppression and reappraisal. Findings from the empirical study indicated that traditional predictors of adjustment (wealth and health) accounted for 12% of the total variance in outcome. Problem-solving was the strongest variable in the model explaining 24% of the difference in adjustment. Interestingly, the retirees who reported not having used problem-solving as a mechanism to cope with retirement were the most adjusted. Regarding satisfaction, retirees tended to experience higher retirement satisfaction if they had a greater level of self-rated mental health and increased access to household income (explained 14% and 9% of the total variance respectively). However, retirees who reported high levels of rumination experienced lower retirement satisfaction (rumination accounted for 8% of the total variance). Ageism was not a predictor of retirement adjustment or satisfaction. Conclusions: According to the systematic review, rumination seems to be the ER strategy most strongly associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression in OP population. This finding was consistent despite the heterogeneity of the studied populations and a variety of outcome measures. Further research is needed to explore the impact of ER strategies on measures of physical health and wellbeing in OP. The results of the empirical paper support the role of traditional predictors (wealth and health) in satisfaction and adjustment with retirement. The retirees who adjusted better to retirement were those who did not use problem-solving as a strategy to confront retirement. Retirees who reported high levels of rumination experienced lower retirement satisfaction. Ageism did not predict retirement satisfaction or adjustment. These findings are discussed in the context of retirement planning and successful ageing.

Thesis. 1976. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Dewey. / Bibliography: leaf 44. / M.S.

This dissertation consists of three chapters that study issues related to unemployment and retirement decisions of workers.The first chapter examines the impact of additional pension benefits on the retirement timing of low-income female workers in Germany. Using administrative pension insurance records from Germany, it studies the impact of a pension subsidy program on retirement decisions of recipients. The kinked schedule of the policy allows me to identify the causal effect using a regression kink design. The estimation suggests that 100 euros in additional monthly pension benefits induce female recipients to claim pensions earlier by about 10 months. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the ratio of the behavioral cost to the mechanical cost of this subsidy program is 0.3, which is smaller than that of other anti-poverty programs. The second chapter studies the total labor supply effects of Unemployment Insurance (UI) for older workers --- both at the extensive and the intensive margin. It documents sharp bunchings in UI inflows at age discontinuities created by UI eligibility for workers in their 50s. Using a combination of regression discontinuity designs and bunching techniques, we quantify the magnitude of these responses exploiting a variety of thresholds, kinks, and notches induced by the UI and retirement institutions. We estimate the total effect using a dynamic life-cycle structural model. Results suggest that the impact of UI extension on non-employment durations for older workers is almost twice as large as the impact for younger workers. The third chapter examines the impact of receiving written advance notification of layoff on the labor supply of displaced workers by exploring the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. The California WARN Act, implemented in 2003, expands the requirements of the federal WARN Act. It provides protection to workers in smaller firms and at smaller layoff events. Using the Displaced Worker Supplement to the Current Population Surveys from 1996 to 2018 and a differences-in-difference method, I find that the displaced workers affected by the mini WARN Acts are 3\% more likely to claim unemployment insurance. Conditional on claiming UI, they are less likely to exhaust UI.