MINIMUM-HOURS CONSTRAlNTS AND RETlREMENT BEHAVlOR

This paper presents statistics which confirm the existence of minimum-hours constraints for jobs held by a majority of prime-age male workers who are not self-employed. It then considers the implications of these Constraints for studies of retirement behavior and related policy analyses. Potential biases associated with conventional analyses, which either ignore the existence of minimum-hours constraints or assume they are pervasive, are discussed in the context of structural life-cycle retirement models. A more realistic but still imperfect specification, which can be estimated given available data, assumes minimum-hours constraints on the main job and variable hours elsewhere Copyright 1983 Western Economic Association International.