34  Monthly Labor Review • June 2011

Retirement

Data from the longitudinal Health and Retirement Study

indicate that approximately 15 percent of older Americans

with career jobs returned to the labor force after having

retired; respondents were more likely to reenter

the workforce if they were younger, were in better health, 

or had a defined-contribution pension plan

Kevin E. Cahill,

Michael D. Giandrea,

and

Joseph F. Quinn

Kevin E. Cahill is a research

economist at the Sloan Center

on Aging & Work at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA; Joseph

F. Quinn is the James P. McIntyre

Professor of Economics in the

Department of Economics at

Boston College and is also affiliated with the Sloan Center

on Aging & Work; Michael D. 

Giandrea is a research economist

in the Office of Productivity and

Technology, Bureau of Labor

Statistics, Washington, DC. Email: 

giandrea.michael@bls.gov. All

views expressed in this article

are those of the authors and

do not necessarily reflect the

views or policies of the Bureau

of Labor Statistics. The Alfred P.

Sloan Foundation supported this

research through a grant to the

Sloan Center on Aging & Work at

Boston College.

Reentering the labor force

after retirement

For most older Americans with fulltime career jobs, retirement is not a 

one-time, permanent event. Instead, 

their exits from the labor force are more 

gradual, with many career workers moving to another job before leaving the labor 

force completely.1

 Jobs that follow full-time 

career employment and precede complete 

withdrawal from the labor force are commonly known as bridge jobs. The prevalence 

and determinants of bridge jobs have been 

studied extensively in the literature on retirement. In a summary of such literature 

from the 1970s and 1980s, Joseph Quinn, 

Richard Burkhauser, and Daniel Meyers 

concluded that, for many older Americans, 

retirement is a process.

2

 Data from the Retirement History Survey (RHS), a longitudinal dataset of older American men and 

unmarried women conducted from 1969 to 

1979, show that the majority of older career 

workers had changed jobs or exited and 

reentered the labor force following career 

employment, where “career” was defined 

as the longest spell of employment with a 

single firm.3

More recent data from the Health and 

Retirement Study (HRS) confirm these 

earlier findings and reveal that one-time 

permanent retirements are the exception 

rather than the rule. Examining data from 

the first three waves of the HRS, spanning 1992 

to 1996, Quinn estimated that, at a minimum, 

between one-third and one-half of older career 

workers would experience a transition to bridgejob employment prior to complete withdrawal 

from the labor force.4

 Extending Quinn’s study 

with more recent data, Cahill, Giandrea, and 

Quinn found that, between 1992 and 2002, approximately 60 percent of older workers who 

had left a career job moved to a bridge job prior 

to exiting the labor force.5

 In a followup study, 

these authors found a similar prevalence of 

bridge jobs among a slightly younger cohort of 

HRS respondents known as the “War Babies.”6

People take bridge jobs for many reasons. 

For some, bridge jobs are a way to remain active 

through work or to try something new. For others, bridge jobs are a financial necessity, a result 

of a changing landscape in which workers are 

faced with a “do-it-yourself ” approach to retirement income security.7

 The movement away 

from traditional defined-benefit pensions over 

the past 30 years has been a pivotal part of this 

change.8

 Between 1983 and 2004, the percentage of workers with a pension who had only a 

defined-benefit plan decreased from 62 percent 

to 20 percent.9

 The percentage with both a defined-benefit and a defined-contribution plan 

also declined over the same period, from 26 

percent to 17 percent, although these percentages are somewhat sensitive to the underlying 
Monthly Labor Review • June 2011  35

data source.10 More recent data from 2007 indicate that, 

among family heads who participated in an employerbased pension, 18 percent had only a defined-benefit 

pension and another 18 percent had both a definedbenefit and a defined-contribution plan.11 Further, 

many of the remaining defined-benefit plans have been 

converted to cash balance plans.12

In defined-contribution plans, workers decide how 

much to contribute and how to invest their funds.13 One 

implication of this shift is that more employees—those 

with defined-contribution plans—are assuming the investment risk associated with their pension plans. The 

result is that the pension wealth of many older workers 

and retirees is now more susceptible to financial market 

fluctuations than in the past. Further, any changes to 

Social Security are likely to reduce or delay benefits in 

order to maintain the solvency of the program.14

One way that individuals can insure against uncertainty in retirement is to reenter the labor force after 

“retiring.” Reentry can come about in two ways. First, 

it can be planned, as a way to move out of career employment gradually by taking a break from paid work 

for a certain length of time before moving to another 

job. Planned reentry is one way to extend the worklife 

of those who would have otherwise remained out of 

the labor force. Indeed, older workers are already extending their worklives, as a century-old trend toward 

earlier and earlier retirement among American men 

halted in the mid-1980s and then reversed.15 Labor 

force participation rates among older men and especially women have increased in recent years.16

When reentry is not planned, the option to rejoin the 

workforce provides a form of insurance against unforeseen contingencies. Workers initially may leave the labor 

force and adjust their consumption to match their retirement income. Although this approach has the disadvantage of potentially reducing one’s living standard, the 

retiree may still be better off if the reduction in consumption is offset by the additional leisure. Reentry can then 

serve as a backup plan in the event that an individual’s 

standard of living in retirement falls short of expectations.

Viewed this way, the possibility of reentry blurs what 

it means to retire. Moreover, if contingent reentry is 

common, an examination of work decisions later in life 

might not provide a complete picture of the transitional 

nature of retirement. A fraction of those who leave the 

labor force directly from their full-time career jobs may 

actually be expecting to return to work if retirement is 

not fulfilling or if retirement income proves inadequate. 

In fact, some of these workers will return to work and 

some will not. One study suggests that a substantial change in 

retirement income may be needed to induce this type of contingent reentry: Courtney Coile and Phillip Levine used HRS data 

to examine reentry in the context of the booming stock market 

valuations of the late 1990s and the subsequent bust from 2000 

to 2002.17 They found no statistically significant impact of the 

stock market decline on the rate of reentry.

The literature to date indicates that a sizable minority of older 

workers reenters the labor force following an initial exit. Quinn, 

Burkhauser, and Meyers reported that about 10 percent of career 

workers interviewed for the RHS reentered the labor force after 

being out for at least 2 years. The authors noted that this estimate was likely to be a lower bound because reentry could have 

occurred beyond the RHS observation period, which ended in 

1979.18 A subsequent study by David Blau investigated transitions among older workers and found a higher rate of reentry: 

approximately 26 percent of older men who were not employed 

moved to either part-time or full-time employment later, while 

23 percent of part-time employed older men returned to fulltime employment.19 Blau also found that the quarterly hazard 

rate for moving from being out of the labor force to full-time 

employment was 5 percent for 56-year-olds.20 This rate remained 

high until age 62 and then fell below 1 percent by age 64. The 

hazard rate of reentry into part-time employment among older 

workers was below 1.2 percent for the ages examined.

In a particularly relevant recent study, Nicole Maestas 

examined the extent to which workers anticipated, prior to 

retirement, that they might reenter the labor force after retirement.21 Using the first six waves of HRS data, Maestas 

analyzed retirement transitions partly on the basis of selfidentified retirement status. She found that about one-half 

of workers retired in the “traditional” fashion, directly from 

either full-time or part-time employment to full retirement, 

defined as complete withdrawal from the labor force. She then 

focused on the transitions that workers made from retirement: 

from complete retirement to partial retirement (the latter being a self-report of “retirement” combined with non-full-time 

employment), from complete retirement to full-time employment, and from partial retirement to full-time employment. 

Maestas found that at least 25 percent of retirees had returned 

to the labor force by 2002 (the last wave of the HRS survey 

examined in her study). As expected, reentry into the labor 

force was substantially higher among those who first retired in 

their early to mid-50s than among those who first retired later 

in life. Maestas established that returning to the labor force 

is common among retirees and that more than 80 percent of 

those who reentered anticipated doing so prior to retirement. 

Labor market reentry is another method by which workers can 

smooth the transition from employment to full retirement.

A drawback of some reentry studies is their reliance on self-
Retirement

36  Monthly Labor Review • June 2011

reported retirement, which is not consistently defined across 

respondents. This article addresses that issue by using the 

respondent’s actual work status at the time of each survey 

to identify retirement transitions. Using nine waves of HRS

data, the article focuses on the prevalence and determinants 

of reentering the workforce after retirement. This period 

covered by the nine waves, from 1992 to 2008, makes it possible to observe many different work histories and reveals a 

variety of interesting paths to retirement.

The next section describes the dataset and methods used 

in the analysis that follows, with a detailed description of 

a key subsample: workers who have had a full-time career 

job in their work history. The final two sections present and 

summarize the findings obtained from the analysis. 

Data and methods

The HRS is an ongoing nationally representative longitudinal 

survey of older Americans that began in 1992.22 The survey, 

which includes detailed information on the demographic and 

economic characteristics of the sample, has been conducted 

every other year since 1992, with data currently available 

through 2008. The initial group of about 12,600 respondents 

(from approximately 7,600 households) varied in age from 51 

to 61 years at the time of their first interview in 1992. Attrition from one wave to the next ranged from 4 percent to 9 

percent, and about 62 percent of the original sample remained 

after 16 years.23 For the purposes of this article, a key feature 

of the survey is a set of questions related to the respondents’ 

work status in each wave. The longitudinal nature of the dataset permits an analysis of each individual’s job decisions over 

time, including the way in which the person exits the labor 

force. Because the focus of the article is labor force exit and retirement patterns, the sample is restricted to respondents who 

worked at some point after age 49. As the following tabulation of HRS “core” respondents—those who were ages 51 to 

61 in 1992—shows, 91 percent of the men and 78 percent of 

the women had work experience after age 49:

Survey participation or work status Total Men Women

Participated in wave 1:

Sample size.............................. 12,652 5,869 6,783

Worked after age 49:

Sample size.............................. 10,639 5,353 5,286

Percent of HRS core................. 84 91 78

Had a full-time career job after age 49:

Sample size.............................. 7,432 4,288 3,144

Percent of HRS core................. 59 73 46

In a full-time career job in 1992:

Sample size.............................. 5,617 3,061 2,556

Percent of HRS core................. 44 52 38

Also noted in this tabulation are those who worked in a 

full-time career job after age 49, including those who had 

a job in 1992 that ultimately became a full-time career 

job. A full-time career job is defined as a job in which 

an individual works at least 1,600 hours per year for at 

least 10 years. The initial questionnaire asked about a respondent’s current (in 1992) job and all previous jobs that 

lasted 5 or more years. This information makes it possible 

to determine whether a respondent ever held a full-time 

career job. Further, respondents who were not working 

at the time of the initial interview were asked about the 

most recent job held, regardless of tenure. In all, as shown 

in the tabulation, 73 percent of men and 46 percent of 

women had a full-time career job after age 49.

The bulk of the analysis that follows utilizes just those 

with full-time career jobs at the time of the first (1992) interview, because the first HRS survey contains key questions 

about demographics and job characteristics. In the HRS, 52 

percent of men (n = 3,061) and 38 percent of women (n = 

2,556) had a full-time career job in 1992.

Results

The analysis begins with the group of HRS respondents 

who held a full-time career job after age 49. As shown in 

the following tabulation, in 2008 slightly more than 40 

percent of these men and women either were still in a fulltime career job or were working in a bridge job:24

Work status in 2008 Men Women

Still in a full-time career job...................... 22.6 23.3

Moved to a bridge job:

Still in a bridge job ................................ 20.9 18.7

Moved out of the labor force ................. 23.1 23.0

 Still out of the labor force.................. 21.2 21.1

 Reentered the labor force................... 1.9 1.9

Exited directly from a full-time career job. 33.4 35.1

Still out of the labor force...................... 27.0 29.2

Reentered the labor force....................... 6.4 5.9

The respondents of interest in this study are the remainder: those who had left the labor force by 2008, as did 56 

percent of the men and 58 percent of the women.25 As 

shown in the tabulation, some left the labor force directly 

from full-time career employment (about 33 percent of 

the men and 35 percent of the women) while others left 

from a postcareer bridge job (another 23 percent of the 

men and 23 percent of the women).26 Of those who did 

exit the labor force, about 15 percent ((1.9 + 6.4)/56.5) of 

the men and about 13 percent ((1.9 + 5.9)/58.1) of the 

women later returned.
Monthly Labor Review • June 2011  37

Demographic and economic characteristics 

of labor force reentrants. What factors 

are associated with reentry? To answer 

this question, rates of reentry are examined across various demographic and 

economic categories, measured at the 

time the respondents left their full-time 

career jobs. However, because much of 

this information is not available if the 

respondent’s full-time career job ended 

before the first interview, respondents 

here were restricted to those who had a 

full-time career job in 1992. This restriction reduced the sample size from 7,432 

to 5,617. Of these remaining respondents, 1,559 men and 1,311 women (see 

sample sizes at the bottom of table 1) 

subsequently left the labor force for two 

or more consecutive survey waves and 

15 percent of them (16 percent of the 

men and 14 percent of the women) later 

returned. These reentry percentages are 

close to those derived from the slightly 

larger sample mentioned earlier, which 

included all those with a full-time career job after age 49.

Reentry was more common among 

those who were younger and in better 

health at the time of their transition 

from their full-time career job. (See 

table 1 for reentry rates by various demographics characteristics.) Rates of 

reentry declined with age for both men 

and women. For men, the rate of reentry 

dropped from 22 percent for those less 

than 56 years of age, to 16 percent for 

those ages 56 to 61, 13 percent for those 

62 to 64, and only 8 percent among 

those 65 years and older. The rate of reentry associated with each age category 

was slightly lower for women than for 

men, but the pattern by age was the 

same. For women, the rate of reentry 

was 20 percent for those less than age 

56 at the time of transition and to just 

3 percent for those 65 years and older.

Health status also appears to be an 

important factor in the decision to reenter; reentry was highest for those who 

rated their health as excellent or very 

Reentry status of HRS core respondents with a full-time career job 

in 1992 who exited the workforce for at least two survey waves, by 

selected demographic characteristics

Characteristic

Men Women

Still out of the 

labor force Reentered Still out of the labor force Reentered

Age priorto transition:1

Less than 56 years 78 22 80

56– 61 years 84 16 87

62– 64 years 87 13 9

65 years and older 92 8 9

Subjective health status:2

Excellent or very good 82 18 84

 Good 88 12 88 12

Fair or poor 90 10 9

Education:

 College degree 83 17 85 15

Less than college degree 85 15

Marital status:3

 Married 84 16 86 14

 Not married 87 13 86 14

Dependent children status:4

Has dependent children 82 18

Has no dependent children 85 15

Spouse's health status:

Excellent or very good 85 15 87

 Good 86 14 85 15

Fair or poor 86 14 88

Spouse’s employmentstatus:

Employed 83 1

Not employed 86 1

Sample size 1,315 244 1,129 182

1 Differences in the rate of reentry by age among men, among women, and across gender are

statistically significant at the 1-percent level. 2 Differences in the rate of reentry by subjective health status among men and among women

are statistically significant at the 1-percent level. 3 Differences in the rate of rentry by marital status across gender are statistically significant at

the 1-percent level. 4 Differences in the rate of reentry by child dependency status among women and across

gender are statistically significant at the 1-percent level.

NOTE: HRS core respondents are those who were 51 to 61 years old in 1992. Demographic characteristics are defined as of the survey wave prior to work force exit. In some cases, a value could

not be determined in the survey wave prior to transition.

SOURCE: Authors’calculations based on the Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

Table 1.

[In percent]
Retirement

38  Monthly Labor Review • June 2011

good prior to leaving their career jobs 

and lowest for those who rated their 

health as fair or poor. In particular, 18 

percent of the men and 16 percent of 

the women with excellent or very good 

health reentered, compared with just 

10 percent of the men and 7 percent 

of the women with fair or poor health 

and intermediate percentages (12 percent) for men and women with self-described good health. This finding may 

indicate that healthy men and women 

have more opportunity to rejoin the 

labor market, or they may face broader 

choices of occupations and industries.

One other notable finding from the 

examination of demographic characteristics is that women with dependent 

children at the time they left full-time 

career employment were significantly 

more likely to reenter the workforce 

than those without dependent children (18 percent and 12 percent, respectively); this was not true for men.

In addition to these differences by 

demographic characteristics, rates of 

reentry differed across various economic categories, including those associated 

with an individual’s full-time career job. 

(See table 2.) The rate of reentry was 

lower among those with only definedbenefit pensions compared with those 

with only defined-contribution pensions or no pension, but the difference, 

which was more pronounced among 

women than men, was not statistically significant at the 10-percent level. 

These results are consistent with the literature on bridge jobs, which finds that 

those with defined-benefit plans are 

less likely to experience gradual retirement.27 The results are also consistent 

with the idea that those with definedbenefit plans have a more financially 

stable retirement than those with no 

pensions or with defined-contribution 

pensions and therefore may be less 

likely to reenter the labor force to supplement their retirement income. 

Labor market reentry also appeared 

Reentry status of HRS core respondents with a full-time career job 

in 1992 who exited the workforce for at least two survey waves, by 

selected economic characteristics

Characteristic

Men Women

Still out of the 

labor force Reentered Still out of the labor force Reentered

Health insurance status:

Not covered on career job 88 12 88

Covered and would maint

 coverage 85 15 86 14

Covered and would lose coverage 85 15 

Pension status:

No pension 85 15 85

 Defined benefit only 87 13 89 11

Defined contribution only 84 16 83

 Defined benefit and defined 

contribution 77 23

Category of employment1

Self-employed 82 18 77

Wage-and-salary worker 85 15 87

Occupation status:2

White collar, highly skilled 84 16 86

 White collar, other 85 15 87 13

Blue collar, highly skilled 83 17 86

Blue collar, other 87 13 86

Wage rate:2

$0–$10/hour 82 18 

$10–$20/hour 86 14 

$20–$50/hour 85 15 

More than $50/hour 83 17

Wealth (nonpension, nonhousing assets):

$0–$25,000 83 17 87

$25,000–$100,000 85 15 83

$100,000–$500,000 86 14 87

More than $500,000 82 18 90

Home ownership status:3

 Do not own home 80 20 86 14

 Own home 85 15 86 14

Sample size 1,315 244 1,129 182

1 Differences in the rate of reentry by category of employment among women are statistically

significant at the 1-percent level. 2 Differences in the rate of reentry by occupational status and wage rate across gender are statistically significant at the 1-percent level. 3 Differences in the rate of rentry by home ownership status among men are statistically significant at the 5-percent level.

NOTE: HRS core respondents are those who were 51 to 61 years old in 1992. Economic characteristics are defined as of the survey wave prior to work force exit. In some cases, a value could not be

determined in the survey wave prior to transition.

SOURCE: Authors’ calculations based on Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

Table 2.

[In percent]
Monthly Labor Review • June 2011  39

to be slightly more common among those with the lowest 

wage rates (less than $10/hour) and the highest wage rates 

(more than $50/hour) than those in the middle at the time 

of transition. The differences by wage rate, however, were 

not statistically significant. This u-shaped pattern also has 

been observed in the literature on bridge jobs, with workers 

at both ends of the socioeconomic scale being more likely 

to utilize bridge jobs on the way out than those in the middle—those at the lower end because they have to and those 

at the upper end because they want to.28

Among men, the rate of reentry was higher for those who 

did not own a home than for those who did. For many older 

Americans, their home is their largest nonpension asset. 

Overall, more than 55 percent of all those who exited had 

less than $100,000 in nonpension, nonhousing assets prior to 

leaving their full-time career jobs (data not shown in table 2).

Given the flexibility associated with self-employment, 

it seems, a priori, that the rate of reentry would be higher 

for respondents who were self-employed in their full-time 

career jobs than for analogous wage-and-salary workers. 

This turned out to be true, but only among the women in 

the sample. Self-employed men were not significantly more 

likely to reenter the workforce than wage-and-salary men. 

One possible explanation for this finding among men is 

that the self-employed can ease out of their career jobs by 

reducing their hours (an option less likely on wage-andsalary jobs), thereby decreasing the need to change jobs 

later in life in order to retire gradually. Another possibility in this bivariate analysis (here and throughout tables 1 

and 2) is that other factors, which are not held constant, 

may be blurring the impact of self-employment.

Determinants of reentry. Logistic regression was used to 

examine simultaneously the determinants of labor force reentry later in life. Individuals were included in the regression 

if they were in a full-time career job in 1992 and were subsequently out of the labor force for at least two consecutive 

survey waves. The dependent variable equals 1 if an individual later reentered the labor force and equals 0 otherwise. The explanatory variables consist of the demographic 

and economic characteristics previously described, as well 

as some other variables.29 All time-varying variables, such 

as age, health status, and spouse’s employment status, were 

measured as of the time of the transition from full-time career employment. Regressions were run for men and women 

separately. Selected marginal effects from the regressions, 

evaluated at sample means, are reported in table 3.

Consistent with the results of Maestas, one of the strongest predictors of reentry was age.30 The older respondents 

were at the time they left their full-time career jobs, the less 

likely they were to reenter the labor force. Men and women 

who were ages 56 to 61 at the time of their transition, for 

example, were about 5 percentage points less likely to reenter 

than those younger than age 56 (the control group for age); 

men and women who were ages 62 to 64 were, respectively, 

8 percentage points and 11 percentage points less likely to 

reenter than those younger than 56; and men and women 

ages 65 and older were, respectively, 14 percentage points and 

23 percentage points less likely to reenter than those younger 

than 56. All the age coefficients were statistically significant.

With age controlled for, respondents who rated their 

health as either fair or poor at the time of the transition 

were less likely to reenter the labor force than those who 

rated their health as good (the control group for health) and 

those who rated their health as either very good or excellent 

were more likely than the control group to reenter. Only 

one of the four health coefficients (“excellent or very good” 

and “fair or poor,” for men and for women) was statistically 

significant, but the other three were close to significant at 

the 10-percent level.

Pension status, home ownership, and spousal work status 

also were significant determinants of reentry among men. 

Men with only a defined-contribution pension plan, and 

therefore with some of their retirement wealth subject to 

market risk, were about 5 percentage points more likely 

to reenter the labor force than those without a pension; in 

contrast, those with only a defined-benefit plan were no 

more likely to reenter than those without a pension. The 

same defined-contribution effect appears for women, although the coefficient is not quite significant at the 10-percent level. These results are consistent with the descriptive 

results presented in table 2.

 One difference between the descriptive and multivariate analyses is the impact of having an employed spouse. 

In the descriptive analysis, both men and women with a 

working spouse were more likely to reenter the labor force 

than those without a working spouse. (See table 1.) In the 

multivariate analysis, however, although the point estimates 

are similar (about +.04), this result is statistically significant for the men only. Men (but not women) who owned 

a home were 5 percentage points less likely to reenter, suggesting that home ownership is a sign of financial stability 

in retirement. Finally, self-employed women (but not men) 

were significantly more likely (about 7 percentage points) 

to reenter than wage-and-salary women, a finding that is 

also consistent with the descriptive results.

THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED IN THIS ARTICLE suggests 

that returning to the labor force plays an important role 

in the retirement process. According to 1992–2008 data 
Retirement

40  Monthly Labor Review • June 2011

Selected marginal effects from logistic regression, HRS core respondents with a full-time career job in 1992 who 

were not working for at least two consecutive interviews following full-time career employment

 Variable

Men Women

Marginal effect p-value Marginal effect p-value

Age:

55 years or younger ... ... ... ...

56–61 years 1

–0.053 0.019 1–0.055 0.004

62–64 years 1–.078 .005 1–.105 .001

65 years or older 1–.142 .000 1–.230 .000

Respondent’s health status:

Excellent or very good .033 .107 .030 .124

Good ... ... ... ...

Fair or poor –.042 .196 1

–.077 .018

Spouse’s health status:

Excellent or very good –.017 .476 –.015 .535

Good ... ... ... ...

Fair or poor .004 .911 –.026 .456

Education:

Less than high school .017 .487 .039 .100

High school graduate ... ... ... ...

College graduate .022 .406 .013 .647

Married –.031 .322 –.046 .151

Has dependent child 2.040 .091 .027 .154

Health insurance status:

Portable –.011 .606 .004 .833

Nonportable ... ... ... ...

None –.063 .176 –.056 .184

Pension status:

Defined benefit only .011 .629 –.010 .642

Defined contribution only 1.048 .034 .035 .119

Defined benefit and defined 

contribution .021 .630 –.038 .533

None ... ... ... ...

Occupational status:

White collar, highly skilled –.017 .579 –.010 .739

White collar, other –.019 .578 –.035 .176

Blue collar, high skilled .016 .541 –.002 .952

Blue collar, other ... ... ... ...

Self-employed .040 .227 1

.071 .024

Spouse works 1.046 .036 .039 .149

Own home 2–.045 .068 .018 .471

1 Statistically significant at the 5-percent level.

2 Statistically significant at the 10-percent level.

NOTE: HRS core respondents are those who were 51 to 61 years in

1992. Dependent variable: reentered labor force (reentered = 1).

Besides controlling for the variables shown, the regression controlled

for ethnicity, wage, wage squared, wealth, wealth squared, and region.

SOURCE: Authors’ calculations based on Health and Retirement

Study (HRS).

Table 3.
Monthly Labor Review • June 2011  41

from the Health and Retirement Study, about 15 percent of 

older career workers who left the labor force subsequently 

returned to work. This rate of reentry is higher than the 

10-percent rate estimated by Quinn, Burkhauser, and Meyers with data from the 1970s31 and lower than the recent 

“unretirement” rate identified by Maestas, which exceeded 

20 percent.32 The difference is due in part to the more restrictive requirement used in this article of being observed 

to be out of the labor force during at least two survey waves, 

compared with Maestas’s definition, which combined a 

measure of hours worked with self-reported retirement status. The two-wave requirement means that reentries after 

labor market departures that did not overlap two HRS surveys will not be counted and therefore that the 15 percent 

estimated here should be viewed as a lower bound.

The determinants of reentry among older Americans are 

similar to those of other job transitions late in life, such 

as transitions from career employment to bridge jobs, as 

described by Quinn, by Cahill, Giandrea, and Quinn, and 

by Ruhm.33 Respondents were more likely to reenter after 

leaving the labor force if they were younger and in good 

health; also, female HRS respondents were more likely to do 

so if they had dependent children at the time of the transition. Individuals with employer-provided defined-contribution pensions in their full-time career job were more 

likely to reenter than those without pensions, whereas those 

with defined-benefit plans were not. Finally, men who did 

not own a home and those whose wives were still working 

were more likely to reenter.

The findings presented here provide additional evidence 

beyond that in the existing literature that retirement transitions are diverse and that many workers’ exits from the 

labor force are not permanent. This ability to reverse retirement decisions may become increasingly important to older 

Americans in the years ahead as the effects of the shift in 

employer-provided pensions from defined-benefit to defined-contribution plans set in. Older Americans who once 

would have relied on a steady source of retirement income 

from defined-benefit plans now face the risk of outliving 

their assets. In light of this reality, these workers may reconsider some aspects of their retirement plans. One response 

to the risk of outliving one’s assets is to reduce consumption 

to allow existing assets to last longer. Working longer—delaying the age at which one permanently leaves the labor 

force—is another option, one with advantages for both individuals and society as a whole, because living standards 

can be maintained and national output is increased. With 

the possibility of reentry, older Americans can exit the labor 

force and retain the option of working again if necessary.

For reentry to be a viable option, however, a retiree must 

have confidence that a job will be available if needed. This 

issue of labor demand was not a large concern during much 

of the past 20 years, with unemployment mostly in the 

4– to 6-percent range. More recently, however, in light of 

persistently higher unemployment rates, older Americans 

might well be less confident about finding a job after exiting the labor force, perhaps limiting the extent to which 

reentry is viewed as a viable option in retirement.

Because of uncertainty about finding a new job if needed, older workers may be reluctant to leave a career job 

later in life. Instead, they may choose to remain in career 

employment in order to accumulate additional wealth for 

retirement. Further, older retirees hoping to work again 

may experience a reduction in living standards if their job 

search drags on. In that case, some will turn to social programs they would otherwise not have needed. Indeed, labor demand might be a key consideration in older workers’ 

assessments of labor force reentry as a way to supplement 

inadequate retirement income.

Recent research on when and how Americans retire, as 

well as this and other studies on labor force reentry, has 

established that the work patterns of older Americans are 

many and varied. Retirement is not a one-time, permanent 

event for most older Americans, even for those who initially leave the labor force directly from career employment. 

A sizable minority of the latter subsequently return to the 

labor force. When reentry is considered together with the 

prevalence of bridge jobs, it becomes clear that retirement 

from a career job is indeed a process that takes place over 

time for the majority of older Americans.

Notes

1 See Joseph F. Quinn, “Retirement Patterns and Bridge Jobs in the 

1990s,” EBRI Issue Brief No. 206 (Washington, DC, Employee Benefit 

Research Institute, February 1999), http://www.ebri.org/publications/

ib/index.cfm?fa=ibDisp&content_id=119 (visited June 24, 2008), and 

“New Paths to Retirement,” in Brett Hammond, Olivia Mitchell, and 

Anna Rappaport, eds., Forecasting Retirement Needs and Retirement Wealth

(Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), pp. 13–32; Kevin 

E. Cahill, Michael D. Giandrea, and Joseph F. Quinn, “Retirement 

Patterns from Career Employment,” The Gerontologist, August 2006, pp. 

514–23; Michael D. Giandrea, Kevin E. Cahill, and Joseph F. Quinn, 

“Bridge Jobs: A Comparison Across Cohorts,” Research on Aging, 

September 2009, pp. 549–76; and Jan E. Mutchler, Jeffrey A. Burr, Amy 

M. Pienta, and Michael P. Massagli, “Pathways to Labor Force Exit: 

Work Transitions and Work Instability,” Journal of Gerontology, January 

1997, pp. S4–S12.

2 Joseph F. Quinn, Richard V. Burkhauser, and Daniel A. Myers, 
Retirement

42  Monthly Labor Review • June 2011

Passing the Torch: The Influence of Economic Incentives on Work and 

Retirement (Kalamazoo, MI, W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment 

Research, 1990).

3 Christopher J. Ruhm, “Bridge Jobs and Partial Retirement,” 

Journal of Labor Economics, October 1990, pp. 482–501.

4 Quinn, “Retirement Patterns and Bridge Jobs.” 

5 Cahill, Giandrea, and Quinn, “Retirement Patterns.” 

6 Giandrea, Cahill, and Quinn, “Bridge Jobs.” 

7 See Alicia H. Munnell, Kevin E. Cahill, Andrew D. Eschtruth, 

Kevin Meme, Amy Chasse, Natalia Jivan, Greg Wiles, Mauricio Soto, 

Steven A. Sass, and Tatiana Mihailovschi-Muntean, “The Graying of 

Massachusetts: Aging, the New Rules of Retirement, and the Changing 

Workforce” (Boston, MassINC, June 1, 2004), http://www.massinc.

org/Research/The-Graying-of-Massachusetts.aspx (visited Dec. 12, 

2010); and Alicia H. Munnell, “Working Longer: A Potential Winwin Proposition,” in Teresa Ghilarducci and John Turner, eds., Work 

Options for Older Americans (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre 

Dame Press, 2007), pp. 11–43.

8 See Alicia H. Munnell and Annika Sundén, Coming Up Short: The 

Challenge of 401(k) Plans (Washington, DC, The Brookings Institution 

Press, 2004); and Alicia H. Munnell and Pamela Perun, “An Update 

on Private Pensions,” Issue in Brief No. 50 (Chestnut Hill, MA, Center 

for Retirement Research at Boston College, August 2006), http://crr.

bc.edu/briefs/an_update_on_private_pensions.html (visited Dec. 

12, 2010).

9 Munnell and Perun, “An Update on Private Pensions.” 

10 Ibid. 

11 Craig Copeland, “Retirement Plan Participation and Asset 

Allocation, 2007,” EBRI vol. 30, no. 11 (Washington, DC, Employee 

Benefit Research Institute, November 2009), http://www.ebri.org/

pdf/notespdf/EBRI_Notes_11-Nov09.Ret-Part.pdf (visited June 

20, 2011).

12 See Kevin E. Cahill and Mauricio Soto, “How Do Cash Balance 

Plans Affect the Pension Landscape?” Issue in Brief No. 14 (Chestnut 

Hill, MA, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, December 

2003), http://crr.bc.edu/briefs/how_do_cash_balance_plans_affect_

the_pension_landscape.html (visited Jan. 6, 2011). Cahill and Soto 

provide more information on cash balance plans, which are often referred 

to as “hybrid” pension plans, because they contain characteristics of both 

defined-benefit and defined-contribution plans. 

13 Munnell and Sundén, Coming Up Short. 

14 For data on the financial solvency of Social Security, see The 

2011 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age 

and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds 

(Board of Trustees, Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and 

Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds, 2011), http://www.ssa.gov/

oact/TR/2011/tr2011.pdf (visited June 21, 2011); and “CBO’s LongTerm Projections for Social Security: 2009 Update” (Congressional 

Budget Office, August 2009), http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/

doc10457/08-07-SocialSecurity_Update.pdf (visited Dec. 12, 2010).

15 See Quinn, “Retirement Patterns,” and “Work, Retirement, and 

the Encore Career: Elders and the Future of the American Workforce,” 

Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging, fall 2010, pp. 45–55.

16 See Patrick Purcell, “Older Workers: Employment and Retirement 

Trends,” CRS Report for Congress (Congressional Research Service, 

Sept. 16, 2009), http://aging.senate.gov/crs/pension34.pdf (visited 

Dec. 12, 2010).

17 See Courtney C. Coile and Phillip B. Levine, “Bulls, Bears, and 

Retirement Behavior,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, April 

2006, pp. 408–29. 

18 Quinn, Burkhauser, and Myers, Passing the Torch. 

19 See David M. Blau, “Labor Force Dynamics of Older Men,” 

Econometrica, January 1994, pp. 117–56. 

20 Hazard rate, in this context, refers to the conditional probability of 

entering full employment in a particular quarter given that one is still out 

of the labor force at the beginning of that quarter.

21 See Nicole Maestas, “Back to Work: Expectations and Realizations of Work after Retirement,” Journal of Human Resources, summer 

2010, pp. 719–48. 

22 See F. Thomas Juster and Richard Suzman, “An Overview of the 

Health and Retirement Study,” Journal of Human Resources, Special Issue 

on the Health and Retirement Study: Data Quality and Early Results, 

vol. 30, 1995, pp. S7–S56; and Growing Older in America: The Health & 

Retirement Study (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2007), 

http://www.nia.nih.gov/ResearchInformation/ExtramuralPrograms/

BehavioralAndSocialResearch/HRS.htm (visited Dec. 12, 2010).

23 Attrition is due to many factors, including the death of the 

respondent, an inability to locate the respondent, or refusal to participate in the survey.

24 Respondents classified as “still in a full-time career job” are those 

who were in a full-time career job in 2008 and those who were last 

observed as being in a full-time career job.

25 Respondents who were judged to have left the labor force 

were required to be out of the labor force for at least two surveys in 

order to avoid misclassifying those who had only a temporary lull in 

employment—for example, someone who left a career job just before 

the 2004 survey and moved to a bridge job several weeks later, but just 

after the 2004 survey. Therefore, a respondent had to exit the labor 

force before the 2004 interview in order to qualify for reentry status. 

For example, a respondent who worked in 2002, was out of the labor 

force in 2004 and 2006, and was back in the workforce in 2008 would 

qualify.

26 The survey was unable to identify retirement transitions for 

about 8 percent of the sample. These individuals are not reflected in 

this tabulation.

27 See, for example, Cahill, Giandrea, and Quinn, “Retirement 

Patterns.” 

28 Ibid.

29 Other variables included in the regression, but not shown 

in table 3, are ethnicity, wage rate, financial wealth, and region. The 

coefficients of these variables were not statistically significant at the 

5-percent level.

30 Maestas, “Back to Work.” 

31 Quinn, Burkhauser, and Myers, Passing the Torch. 

32 Maestas, “Back to Work.” 

33 See Quinn, “Retirement Patterns”; Cahill, Giandrea, and Quinn, 

“Retirement Patterns”; and Ruhm, “Bridge Jobs.”