Declining Wealth and Work among Male Veterans in the Health and Retirement Study

The composition, wealth, and employment of male veterans and nonveterans are analyzed for four cohorts from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), those aged 51-56 in 1992, 1998, 2004, and 2010. Half of the men in the two oldest cohorts served in the military. Only 16% of the men in the youngest coh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The journal of retirement 2016-07, Vol.4 (1), p.77-98
Main Authors: Gustman, Alan L., Steinmeier, Thomas L., Tabatabai, Nahid
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Babies
Defined benefit plans
Defined contribution plans
Earnings
Employment
Labor market
Males
Men
Military benefits
Military service
Pensions
Persian Gulf War
Personal finance
Retirement
Retirement planning
Social security
Studies
Veterans
World War II
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Summary:The composition, wealth, and employment of male veterans and nonveterans are analyzed for four cohorts from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), those aged 51-56 in 1992, 1998, 2004, and 2010. Half of the men in the two oldest cohorts served in the military. Only 16% of the men in the youngest cohort, the only cohort subject to the all-volunteer military, served. One-fifth to one-third of the members of each cohort who served saw combat, mainly in Vietnam and the First Gulf War. Among those aged 51-56 in 1992, veterans were better educated, healthier, wealthier, and more likely to be working than nonveterans. By the 2010 cohort, 51- to 56-year-old veterans lost their educational advantage over nonveterans and were less healthy, less wealthy, and less likely to be working. After standardizing in multiple regressions for the influence of major observable characteristics, for the original 1992 HRS cohort, the wealth of veterans is no longer higher than the wealth of nonveterans. In contrast, the wealth of veterans from the youngest cohort, those 51-56 in 2010, remains about 10%-13% lower than the wealth of nonveterans from that cohort. There also is a decline from older to younger cohorts of veterans compared to nonveterans in the probability of not being retired, working more than 35 hours per week, and holding a job for more than 10 years.
ISSN:2326-6899
2326-6902
DOI:10.3905/jor.2016.4.1.077