This study examines the distribution of unemployment insurance benefits across income classes. The new data presented here support previous claims that a large share of unemployment insurance benefits flow to middle- and upper-income groups. The data also show, however, that earlier studies...

Employers often shed older workers by encouraging them to "take" early retirement. An implicit contract model suggests that this behavior will be influenced by the social security early retirement program. When demand is weak and layoffs are necessary, social security benefits can act like a...

Under phased retirement, an older worker remains with his or her employer while gradually reducing work hours and effort. Although older workers often express an interest in phased retirement, actual occurrences are evidently rare. A possible explanation is that employers limit opportunities for...

This paper first proposes a new way to use segregation curves to examine whether one distribution of people across groups (e.g., occupations or neighborhoods) is more segregated than another. It then uses Blackwell’s criterion to extend the argument to more than two types of people. The basic...

There are jobs for which firms employ older workers but tend not to hire new older workers. This may be attributable in part to implicit con tracts that discourage worker shirking and malfeasance by shifting compensation to the end of the contract. Such "delayed payment" contracts can introduce...

Balancing work and family life can be a challenge, especially when a person needs to adjust her work schedule to deal with a family crisis. If the crisis involves a long term problem, such as caring for a sick or injured child that requires several months of care, the balancing act can require...

This article considers the problem of deriving a numerical measure of segregation, i.e., a measure of inequality in the distribution of people across groups. It proposes a list of eight desirable properties for a good numerical measure of segregation. These properties yield a class of...

Utilizing a new survey of employers, this paper examines how and why establishments differ in their willingness to permit an older full-time white-collar worker to take phased retirement. Phased retirement means that an older worker remains with his or her employer while gradually reducing work...

This paper uses a telephone survey of 950 employers to examine employer-side restrictions on phased retirement. Not only did the survey collect information on establishment level policies, it also asked questions about a specific worker’s opportunity for phased retirement. The paper uses these...

Given the continuing shift in labor demand from low-skilled to higher- skilled occupations, Hutchens queries to the fate of the segment of the labor force that does not possess these skills. In order to answer the question, he examines the viability and access to three possible paths that a...