Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 10831 CHAPTER 1  |  WORKING LONGER claiming and vice versa. Yet even with many oth- er explanations, time preference does not fully explain the spike in claiming at age 62. Including subjective expectations about the potential future insolvency of Social Security helps explain some of the spike at 62. The study also includes different hypothetical policy scenarios, showing that increasing the EEA by two years to 64 would encourage more workers to remain in full-time employment. Why so many workers claim Social Security benefits as soon as they are available re- mains an open research question with import- ant bearing on policy debates over increasing the EEA. Proposals to in- crease the EEA raise con- cerns that this would lead to an increase in applications for SSDI. Bound et al. (2010) com- pare health care utilization patterns in four groups: SSDI recipients, rejected SSDI applicants who go on to claim EEA retirement benefits, those who claim Social Security benefits after EEA but before FRA, and those who claim Social Security retirement benefits at the FRA. Those who claim before their FRA are not quite as healthy as those who delay claiming, but they are much healthier than SSDI recipients or rejected SSDI applicants. Rejected applicants appear more similar to SSDI recipients than to beneficiaries who never apply for SSDI benefits. There could be a modest increase in SSDI applications if the EEA and FRA were raised. Many applicants, however, would be too healthy to receive SSDI. Shift from Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution Pensions Employer-provided DC pension plans allow workers to save a certain amount in a retirement account that can be drawn down at retirement. In contrast, DB pension plans provide an annuity payment depending mostly on the type of job and years of service. Unlike savings in DC plans, DB payments typi- cally last until death. Their value is less dependent on the performance of the economy or the stock market than DC plans. As average life expectancy increases and the size of the retired and benefit-collecting population grows, these plans are less commonly offered, while — since their emergence in the 1980s — DC plans are increasingly the norm. HRS data contain a detailed accounting of both types of pension plans. Several studies with HRS data demonstrate that the availability of a DB pension has the effect of lowering expectations of working longer (Mer- min et al. 2007) and of encouraging workforce de- parture (Cahill et al. 2012). Having a DC pension plan from the career job makes people more likely to return to work, but having a DB pension does not (Cahill et al. 2011). Hurd and Rohwedder (2011) quantify the effect of the shift from DB to DC plans in accounting for the trend toward longer working lives. They compare members of the original HRS cohort who were 51 to 56 in 1992 with the War Babies who were 51 to 56 in 1998 and the Early Baby Boomers who were 51 to 56 in 2004. Thirty-nine percent of men in the original HRS cohort have a DB plan compared to 28% of the War Babies and 21% of the Early Baby Boom- ers. DC plans increase from 29% to 49% across these cohorts. Trends are similar for women. These changes account for 68% of the increase in expectations of working past 62 and 38% of the increase in expectations of working past 65. The Role of Health Insurance Public health insurance is available to low-income Americans through Medicaid and becomes avail- able to all Americans at age 65 through Medicare. While the Affordable Care Act creates new routes of access to health insurance, most private health insurance is still provided through employers and thus tied to employment. Many firms offer spou- sal benefits and some offer retiree health insur- ance, especially to their early retirees up until age 65 when Medicare is available. Taking these facts and other features of the retirement landscape into account, research using HRS data weighs the effects of health insurance on the retirement of individuals as well as couples. Retiree health insurance clearly influences retirement. A study using data on men in the HRS finds the presence of retiree health insur- ance appears to provide a path to early retire- ment for men in poor health (Blau and Gilleskie 2008). In the original HRS cohort of men, Marton and Woodbury (2010) find that retiree health insurance has the largest effect on the