Retirement patterns from the labour market in Spain: socio-economic conditions and policies behind the trends

Pau Miret Gamundi, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Madelín Gómez León, Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED)

In the last decades the rise of aging population in Spain has caused concern with regard to the consequences on the workforce structure and Pension System Sustainability. In addition, the legal retirement age is 65 years old, but the pre-retirement patterns were frequently used in recent past worryingly reducing the labour force size and adding more pressure on the Pension System. The aim of this paper is characterize the retirement patterns in a period of labour market re-structuration and an aging process in Spain. Firstly, we will look at the transition from labour market to retirement through a longitudinal analysis of individuals, who were affected by the economic transformation in Spain, and experienced an early retirement patterns. Based on the Socio-demographic Survey carried out in 1991 (157.100 individuals), this study focuses on the transition to retirement of those from 1906 to 1925 cohorts (31.258 individuals), who retired between years 1971 and 1991, looking at the socio-demographic characteristic of the retirees and their possible determinants. Secondly, a study of the preretirement patterns from 1984 to 2004 will be introduced using a different dataset. Describe the patterns of retirement, accounting for the differences of behaviour by cohort, sex and age of individuals retired between 1984 and 2004. On the basis of a 4% Sample from the Spanish Working Life Records for 2004 (1,098,165 out of 27,435,159 individuals), this study focuses on the employees and pensioners excluding public servants. A cross-sectional analysis will be conducted estimating age-specific retirement rates, as well as the mean age of retirement and the retirement hazards.