Declining labor force participation of older men throughout the 20th century and recent increases in participation have generated substantial interest in understanding the effect of public pensions on retirement. The National Bureau of Economic Research's International Social Security (ISS) Project, a long-term collaboration among researchers in a dozen developed countries, has explored this and related questions. The project employs a harmonized approach to conduct within-country analyses that are combined for meaningful cross-country comparisons. The key lesson is that the choices of policy makers affect the incentive to work at older ages and these incentives have important effects on retirement behavior.

Canada and other countries are changing the age for public pension eligibility. A policy concern is the welfare of those individuals exiting the labour force before the age of pension eligibility. This study, through the use of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics data, addressed early retirements by (a) examining the incomes of those who are not working at near-retirement ages, and (b) examining how these Canadians avoid economic hardship. It found that around three-quarters of those not working have been able to avoid low-income status. Most important for avoiding low income are other family income sources, good health, and employment-related pension income.

Governments around the world are reacting to extended lifespans and troubled pension finances by increasing the age of retirement benefit entitlement. This paper studies those who retire before the age of full pension entitlement in the USA using data drawn from the Health and Retirement Study. The major finding is that four out of five people who have zero earnings at pre-entitlement ages are able to find a way to lift their incomes over the poverty line. For men, pension and annuity income are important while for women, spousal income helps most to get them over the line.