In this paper, we use a recent policy change in the Netherlands to study how changes in search requirements for the older unemployed affect their transition rates to employment, early retirement and sickness/disability benefits. The reform, becoming effective on January 1st 2004, required the elderly to formally report their job search efforts to the employment office in order to avoid a (temporary) cut in benefits.

In this paper, we use a recent policy change in the Netherlands to study how changes in search requirements for the older unemployed affect their transition rates to employment, early retirement and sickness/disability benefits. The reform, becoming effective on January 1st 2004, required the elderly to formally report their job search efforts to the employment office in order to avoid a (temporary) cut in benefits. Before the new law was passed, unemployed were allowed to stop all search activity at the moment they turned 57.5.

Policy initiatives such as increases in the full retirement age implicitly reduce benefits for early retirement. Yet research suggests that those in physically demanding jobs may be particularly adversely affected by such policies. We examine to what extent physical job demand relates to early retirement decisions in a population of aging manufacturing workers.

In the scant literature on partners' joint retirement decisions one of the explanations for joint retirement is externalities in leisure. In this study, we investigate how retirement affects the hours of leisure together of individuals in a couple.

A feature of defined benefit (DB) occupational pensions is that changing jobs entails gains or losses (depending on the age at transition) in terms of overall pension entitlements. Inefficiencies may arise in the labour market if employees covered by DB pensions tend to change jobs more or less often than they would if pension entitlements were fully portable.

A feature of defined benefit (DB) occupational pensions is that changing jobs entails gains or losses (depending on the age at transition) in terms of overall pension entitlements. Inefficiencies may arise in the labour market if employees covered by DB pensions tend to change jobs more or less often than they would if pension entitlements were fully portable.

Commentators constantly cite an increase in labor mobility as a major reason for the shift in the private sector from defined benefit to defined contribution plans. But while most casual observers accept such a phenomenon, economists have been hard pressed to find any significant change over time.