Occupation, impaired health, and the functional capacity of men to continue working

Whether the functional capacity of older men to remain at work differs by occupational assignment is an important consideration in judging policies designed to advance the age of retirement. A continuous-time Markov model of retirement disability, and death is used to test hypotheses about the influence of physically demanding work and impaired health on the ability to delay retirement. The model is estimated with panel data on a nationally representative sample of older American males. Physical job requirements and health conditions are found to affect the likelihood of retiring in a disabled state. However, cohort projections of the fractions of workers in physically demanding and sedentary job categories retiring nondisabled are very similar. Special policy consideration of workers in physically demanding occupations may therefore be questioned.