This paper analyzes how the economic penalty for labor withdrawal and the cushions created by society affect the persistent trend toward early retirement of men in their late fifties and early sixties. Microdata for six LIS countries is used to determine why this early exit took place in the...

First considered, at a point in time, is how cross-country differences in the mix of income sources are related to three measures of economic well-being. Poverty, defined as 50 percent of mean-adjusted household income; relative adjusted disposable income of aged households with heads over 55...