An investigation into retirement decision-making: the effect of static and time-varying factors

Planning for and making decisions on retirement is one of the most critical phases in life. In this work, we plan to identify and analyze how factors affect retirement decision-making. Individuals’ decisions regarding retirement include the age to cease working and the age to start receiving pension benefits. We investigate how financial status, health status, family structure, employment history, and socio-demographical characteristics affect the retirement decision. Using the CLSA, which is one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies on aged people, we extract static and time-varying characteristics to study their relationship with individuals’ retirement behavior. The results of our work will provide insight to policy-makers for predicting individuals’ decisions and improving pension programs. Also, our analyses will help individuals make retirement decisions that better serve their needs.