About This Report

Background

The last half of the Twentieth Century witnessed dramatic and fundamental changes that will influence the coming baby boomers in retirement (Farley 1996; Henretta and O’Rand 1999; Society of Actuaries 2006; Butrica, Iams, and Smith 2003; Goldin 2006). Compared with their parents’ generation, the baby boomers experienced relatively higher ages of first marriage, higher divorce rates, and higher rates of remarriage. Longevity increased over the period as indicated by increasing life expectancy at birth and among those aged 65 and over. Such increased life expectancy needs to be financed through increased savings or a delayed transition to full retirement. Perhaps the greatest changes surround the .quiet revolution. in women’s roles which began in the 1970s and continues today. Goldin (2006) defines this, “quiet revolution” as changing horizons among women to include a lifetime of employment, shifting identities from home and family toward economic independence, and increasing job experience and earnings capacity. These changes have fundamentally altered the occupations and lifetime earnings of many women.

In addition to the changes in women’s roles, the nature of work and the employer-employee relationship has changed greatly during this time period. The economy has shifted from a manufacturing base toward services and there is greater global competition. Employer retirement costs and liabilities from defined benefit pensions and retiree health insurance have increased as the workforce has aged. Partly as a result of these increases, employers have shifted towards defined-contribution pension plans where the worker is more responsible for his/her financial well-being in retirement (Munnell and Sunden 2004). These changes will no doubt affect the financial circumstances of many of the baby boomers in the future.

Selected indicators of retirement resources among people aged 55–64: 1984, 1994, and 2004 (Retirement Resources) is a report produced by the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics (Forum) that compares the retirement resources of people aged 55–64 today to the resources people in this age group had 10 and 20 years ago. In this report, retirement resources include both economic resources (e.g., retirement income) and insurance against health care risk (e.g., long-term care insurance). By comparing the economic resources of people born in the 1940s (i.e., people aged 55–64 in 2004) to the circumstances of those born in the 1930s and in the 1920s (i.e., people aged 55–64 in 1994 and 1984, respectively), the Forum hopes to provide some indication of the preparedness of future aged relative to those who retired before them.

Structure of the Report
Retirement Resources is designed to present data in a nontechnical, user-friendly format; it complements other more technical and comprehensive reports produced by the individual Forum agencies. The report includes 12 indicators that are listed in the Table of Contents on page V. Each indicator includes:

• An introductory paragraph that describes the relevance of the indicator to the well-being of the population aged 55–64.
• One or more charts that graphically display analyses of the data.
• Bulleted highlights of salient findings from the data and other sources.

The data used to develop the indicators and their accompanying bullets are presented in table format in Appendix A. Data source descriptions are provided in Appendix B. Additional information about these data sources is available on the Forum’s Website at www.agingstats.gov.

Occasionally, data from another publication are included to give a more complete explanation of the indicator. The citations for these sources are included in the References section (pages 19–20). For those who wish to access the survey data used in this chartbook, contact information is given for each of the data sources in Appendix B.

Accuracy of the Estimates
Most estimates in this report are based on a sample of the population and are, therefore, subject to sampling error. Standard tests of statistical significance have been used to determine whether the differences between estimates exist at generally accepted levels of confidence or whether they occurred by chance. Unless otherwise noted, only statistically significant differences between estimates are discussed in the text. To indicate the reliability of the estimates, standard errors for selected estimates in the chartbook can be found on the Forum’s Web site at www.agingstats.gov. The estimates for some indicators may not sum to totals because of rounding.

Mission
The Forum’s mission is to encourage cooperation and collaboration among Federal agencies to improve the quality and utility of data on the aging population. To accomplish this mission, the Forum provides agencies with a venue to discuss data issues and concerns that cut across agency boundaries, facilitates the development of new databases, improves mechanisms currently used to disseminate information on aging-related data, invites researchers to report on cutting-edge analyses of data, and encourages international collaboration.

The specific goals of the Forum are to improve both the quality and use of data on the aging population by:

• Widening access to information on the aging population through periodic publications and other means.
• Promoting communication among data producers, researchers, and public policymakers.
• Coordinating the development and use of statistical databases among Federal agencies.
• Identifying information gaps and data inconsistencies.
• Investigating questions of data quality.
• Encouraging cross-national research and data collection on the aging population.
• Addressing concerns regarding collection, access, and dissemination of data.

Financial Support The Forum members provide funds and valuable staff time to support the activities of the Forum.

More Information
If you would like more information about this report or other Forum activities, contact:

Kristen Robinson, Ph.D.
Staff Director
Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics
3311 Toledo Road, Room 6321
Hyattsville, MD 20782

Phone: 301–458–4460
Fax: 301–458–4037

E-mail: agingforum@cdc.gov
Website: www.agingstats.gov