title: The influence of marital status and spousal employment on retirement behavior in Germany and Spain.
abstract: This article analyzes the impact of marital status and spousal employment on the timing of retirement in Germany and Spain. Retirement behavior is examined by means of event-history models, with a competing risks framework being used to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary work-exit transitions. To take account of the role of social policies, we adopt a comparative approach. Data are drawn from a 2006 special retirement module implemented analogously in national labor force surveys. The results show that spousal labor market participation plays a large role in work-exit transitions, even when retirement is involuntary. This finding questions the widespread belief that coretirement is exclusively due to preference for joint retirement shared among spouses. Moreover, widows and widowers tend to retire prematurely in Germany, whereas no such effect could be found in Spain. This finding is explained by reference to specific economic incentives arising from national pension legislation.
authors: Departamento de Sociología II, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain jradl@poli.uned.es.
authors: Jonas
authors: J
authors: Radl
authors: Institut für Soziologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors: Ralf K
authors: RK
authors: Himmelreicher
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D004651:Employment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017533:Marital Status / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012179:Retirement / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology; D018454:Spouses / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017805:Widowhood / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
keywords: divorce; family; life course; retirement; survival analysis; widowhood