Retirement
How personal factors influence the age of retirement
Numerous factors such as personal health and employment status appear to have an impact on individual Australians' decisions on when to retire, according to a long-term national study.
How personal factors influence the age of retirement
Numerous factors such as personal health and employment status appear to have an impact on individual Australians' decisions on when to retire, according to a long-term national study.
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) project, conducted by the Melbourne Institute, is a government-funded study which has collected data on Australian citizens on a range of social and financial issues since 2001.
In its latest report, the HILDA project found that certain personal factors influence the age at which Australians enter their retirement.
One such influence is the impact of education, with men and women with a bachelor’s degree or higher retiring 1.38 years and 4.74 years later, respectively, than those without such a qualification.
Immigration also played a part in the age at which individuals retired, with women who emigrated from an English-speaking background typically retiring 1.6 years later than native-born women, and men who emigrated from such a country retiring 0.82 years earlier than their native-born counterparts.
Men who emigrated from a non-English-speaking background were likely to have retired at the same age as native-born men, though women who came from a similar background typically retired 2.35 years later.
Serious injury and poor general health were both likely to increase the probability of retirement, the HILDA project’s report found, with poor health in the previous 12 months increasing the likelihood of retirement 4.1 per cent for men and 5 per cent for women.
A serious injury in the previous 12 months made men 2 per cent more likely to retire and women 2.6 per cent more likely to do so.
Being fired or enduring a deterioration in financial circumstances (such as a bankruptcy) increased the probability of men retiring by 2.8 per cent and 1.6 per cent, respectively, the report said, though neither of these factors seemed to impact women’s retirement age.
Similarly, the death of a spouse or child in the previous 12 months increased the probability of a man retiring by 4.3 per cent, but didn’t affect the age at which a woman retired.
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