Retirement expectations: differences by race, ethnicity, and gender

Analyses by race and ethnicity of several important dimensions of labor market behavior have been constrained in the past by limited samples of the African American and Hispanic populations. This article uses data from the first wave of the Health and Retirement Survey, which oversamples these populations, to compare the retirement plans of African American, Hispanic, and white married men and women. Findings suggest that retirement expectations may accurately forecast retirement behavior and that the differences by race and ethnicity, as well as by gender, that are evident in retirement plans are likely to be reflected in retirement outcomes.