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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Workers' ignorance of retirement benefits | | Author(s) | David J Ekerdt, Jennifer Kay Hackney |
| Journal title | The Gerontologist, vol 42, no 4, August 2002 |
| Pages | pp 543-551 |
| Keywords | Pensions ; Social security benefits ; Health insurance ; Preparation [retirement] ; Social surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | The extent of workers' unfamiliarity with retirement benefits is considered, being a problem that could compromise informed retirement planning. The authors examined the frequency of "don't know" responses to questions about employer pensions, health insurance and Social Security in the 1992 wave of the US Health and Retirement Study. Eligible workers readily offered responses about the shared, public details of pension plans, but knowledge about personal wealth was lacking for one third of those in defined benefit plans, and for one fifth of those in defined contribution plans. Among household respondents, 14% did not know about health insurance continuation after retirement, and 52% could not offer an expected Social Security amount. Such non-response was patterned by proximity to retirement and by social and occupational factors. More than a problem of missing data, these findings argue for a theoretical reconsideration of the role of financial knowledge in retirement behaviour. Ignorance of benefits is probably less of a problem of disclosure than of workers' inattention to available information. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-021021211 A |
| Classmark | JJ: JH: WPG: GA: 3F: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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