Field Work

August 11, 2022

The Age Discrimination and Employment Act states that job ads “may not contain terms and phrases that limit or deter the employment of older individuals.”

Yet some job ads do just that. One ad posted in 2014 sought applicants with “3 to 7 years (no more than 7 years) of relevant legal experience.” More often, employers use subtle language in their ads, asking, for example, that the applicants be “energetic.”

This subtle strategy is highly effective, according to researchers at the University of Liverpool and the University of California at Irvine.

In their field experiment using fake job ads that contained subtly discriminatory language, older workers submitted applications at significantly lower rates than younger workers. Job ads designed to deter older applicants “can have roughly as large an impact on hiring … as direct age discrimination in hiring,” the study concluded.

This research may have less relevance at the moment since unemployment is at historic lows and employers have been desperate for workers. But the economy has slowed in recent months and age discrimination in hiring is a well-established issue in the labor force.

The goal of this new study departs from past research on age discrimination in hiring, which focused on employers that get ample applications from older workers but then discount them as candidates. This new study highlights a different concern – that job ads with subtly discriminatory language discourage them from applying in the first place. …Learn More

June 21, 2022

Mental illness, obesity, smoking, chronic disease – researchers have been able to connect the dots between an array of stresses early in life and how people will fare as they age.

New research zeroes in on the adversities experienced by children and young adults that ultimately contribute to a premature retirement due to a disability.

The basic finding is not terribly surprising – that life’s financial and social circumstances can lead to disabling conditions that will either nudge, or force, older workers to leave the labor force early.

More remarkable is the exhaustive list of past experiences that can increase that risk.

For example, childhood financial adversity in this study took many forms – an unemployed father, family relocations for financial reasons, or even having few books in the house. People whose families struggled financially when they were children were the most likely to retire prematurely.

The study was based on surveys asking older working people born during the Baby Boom, the Depression, and World War II about stressful or traumatic events experienced in childhood and middle age. The researchers followed them through several years of surveys to determine who retired before turning 62. The early retirees were asked whether a medical condition or chronic disability was either an important reason for leaving the labor force or prevented them from continuing to work altogether.

Added to the childhood traumas are a range of social adversities faced by young and middle-aged adults – the death of a spouse, natural disasters, combat duty, divorce, violence, or having a child addicted to drugs – that also increased the likelihood of early retirements. …Learn More

On the Web

February 10, 2022

Most workers have never created an online my SocialSecurity account to get an estimate of their future retirement benefits. The people who do use this feature tend to be older or are retired and already receiving their benefits.

If only more younger adults would log on.

One 31-year-old worker, after looking up his personal estimate for the first time, learned that his future benefit is “not quite nearly enough to survive on.” The estimate – retrieved during an interview with researchers for a new study – prompted him to think about a retirement plan now. A 43-year-old woman realized her spouse’s decision about when to retire would affect her spousal benefit from Social Security. “I had no idea,” she said, calling the information “a reality check.”

And it’s a good thing one 60-year-old logged on to my Social Security. He didn’t know he qualified for retirement benefits, because the last time he’d checked, he had not built up the earnings record – 40 quarters of work – the program requires. “I will look into it further and find out exactly what is going on,” he said.

These and other revelations came from interviews with 24 workers by University of Southern California researchers Lila Rabinovich and Francisco Perez-Arce. They combined these insights with a much larger, online survey to analyze how Americans use the valuable benefit estimates available to them.

It’s important to understand why my Social Security isn’t being used more, especially since first-time users described the online feature as easy to use and eye-opening. Going online didn’t seem to be an issue either, because the people in the survey already search for other information that way.

One of the primary reasons the workers hadn’t looked up their personal accounts, the researchers concluded, was a lack of awareness the feature existed. But this isn’t at all surprising for younger workers, who are more concerned about developing their careers than about retiring. …Learn More