RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Declining Wealth and Work among Male Veterans in the Health and Retirement Study
JF The Journal of Retirement
FD Institutional Investor Journals
SP 77
OP 98
DO 10.3905/jor.2016.4.1.077
VO 4
IS 1
A1 Alan L. Gustman
A1 Thomas L. Steinmeier
A1 Nahid Tabatabai
YR 2016
UL https://pm-research.com/content/4/1/77.abstract
AB The composition, wealth, and employment of male veterans and nonveterans are analyzed for four cohorts from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), those aged 51–56 in 1992, 1998, 2004, and 2010. Half of the men in the two oldest cohorts served in the military. Only 16% of the men in the youngest cohort, the only cohort subject to the all-volunteer military, served. One-fifth to one-third of the members of each cohort who served saw combat, mainly in Vietnam and the First Gulf War. Among those aged 51–56 in 1992, veterans were better educated, healthier, wealthier, and more likely to be working than nonveterans. By the 2010 cohort, 51- to 56-year-old veterans lost their educational advantage over nonveterans and were less healthy, less wealthy, and less likely to be working. After standardizing in multiple regressions for the influence of major observable characteristics, for the original 1992 HRS cohort, the wealth of veterans is no longer higher than the wealth of nonveterans. In contrast, the wealth of veterans from the youngest cohort, those 51–56 in 2010, remains about 10%–13% lower than the wealth of nonveterans from that cohort. There also is a decline from older to younger cohorts of veterans compared to nonveterans in the probability of not being retired, working more than 35 hours per week, and holding a job for more than 10 years.TOPICS: Retirement, legal/regulatory/public policy