Abstract
Co-Occurring Income and Health Trajectories Following Labor Force Exit Analysis
Callie Freitag, PhD, Assistant Professor, Social Work
Description: Labor Force Exits and Trajectories of Economic Hardship and Poor Health in Later Life. The conditions under which adults exit the labor force can have long-ranging impacts on their economic and health trajectories.23-25 The age at which someone exits the labor force (before or after becoming eligible for Social Security retirement benefits) and the reasons for exiting the labor force (for retirement, disability, caregiving, or other reasons) may be key predictors of how someone fares once they stop working for pay. The proposed project will use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study to: (1) estimate the relationships between the age and type of labor force exit and trajectories of economic hardship and poor health, (2) describe whether and how dimensions of structural oppression (including race and ethnicity, sex, class, nativity, and disability) moderate the relationships among the age and reason for exiting the labor force and trajectories of economic hardship and poor health, and (3) characterize the extent to which labor force exits, experiences of economic hardship, and trajectories of poor health co-occur or occur sequentially, and whether one event mediates the relationship between the other two. Findings will advance our understanding of the relationship between trajectories of economic hardship and poor health and provide the empirical foundation to support the development of a K01 proposal to NIA to study the impact of age graded social policies on lifelong health trajectories. CDHA themes: Aging Trajectories & Health Disparities; Health Policy & Health Services Research.