Unequal Duties and Unequal Retirement: Decomposing the Women's Labor Force Decline in Postreform China

The gender gap in labor force participation (LFP) in China has grown over the last 30 years, despite substantial advances in women's education and economic development. Previous research has identified gender discrimination and work-family conflicts as two key explanations for the gap, both of which have risen since the start of China's economic reform in 1978. Using multiple waves of the national census and household panel data from China, this research shows that one overlooked mechanism widening the LFP gender gap lies in the institutional constraints that require women to retire earlier than men. This research also demonstrates how the impact of women's early retirement on the LFP gender gap has been exacerbated by two societal-level changes: (1) population aging, which increased the share of women who reached the retirement age; and (2) economic development, which increased the number of women entering nonfarming occupations and, hence, the gender-based retirement system. These findings suggest that without significant revisions to China's retirement system, the LFP gender gap will continue to expand as the population ages and economic development proceeds.

Social Participation Through the Retirement Transition: Differences by Gender and Employment Status

This study examines how retirees' formal and informal social participation change over time and investigates gendered differences. Seven waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing track the frequency of social participation. A comparison group of employed individuals, weighted with coarsened exact matching, controls for age and time trends, and mixed model regressions estimate changes over time. Retirees show a gradual decline in the frequency of meeting friends and an abrupt decrease in the frequency of attending a social gathering, compared to their working peers. These trends are much stronger for men than women, and compound pre-existing gender differences in social participation. The more severe decline in the social participation of men is of great concern and points to the persistence of gendered employment structures into the retirement transition, putting Korean retirees at risk of social isolation and related health deterioration.

Hand-in-hand in the golden years: Cognitive interdependence, partner involvement in retirement planning, and the transition into retirement

This research examined the influence of cognitive interdependence-a mental state reflecting a collective representation of the self-in-relationship-on the anticipation for and experiences with the transition into retirement. Among soon-to-be retirees (Study 1), greater cognitive interdependence was associated with seeing partners as more instrumental to one's goals both pre- and post-retirement, anticipating greater goal alignment post-retirement, and having directly involved partners in retirement planning to a greater extent than those relatively lower in cognitive interdependence. Among recent retirees (Study 2), retrospective cognitive interdependence was associated with post-retirement goal alignment and goal instrumentality, and the extent to which they believed they had directly involved their partners in retirement planning. However, it was post-retirement goal alignment that was associated with greater ease of retirement and subjective well-being. Finally, soon-to-be retirees relatively high in cognitive interdependence responded to concerns about their retirement (i.e., goal discordance and high retirement ambivalence) by wanting to involve their partners in their retirement plans to a greater extent (Study 3). These studies highlight the importance of romantic partners across the lifespan, and how partners might influence retirement planning, the transition to retirement, and well-being among recent retirees.

How do Older Adults Spend Their Time? Gender Gaps and Educational Gradients in Time Use in East Asian and Western Countries

This study is the first to document how older adults in East Asian and Western societies spend their time, across four key dimensions of daily life, by respondent’s gender and education level. To do this, we undertook a pioneering effort and harmonized cross-sectional time-use data from East Asian countries (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) with data from the Multinational Time Use Study (Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom, United States; to which we refer as Western countries), collected between 2000 and 2015. Findings from bivariate and multivariate models suggest that daily time budgets of East Asian older adults are different from their counterparts in most Western countries. Specifically, gender gaps in domestic work, leisure, and sleep time were larger in East Asian contexts, than in Western countries. Gender gaps in paid work were larger in China compared to all other regions. Higher levels of educational attainment were associated with less paid work, more leisure, and less sleep time in East Asian countries, while in Western countries they were associated with more paid work, less domestic work, and less sleep. Interestingly, Italy and Spain, two Southern European welfare regimes, shared more similarities with East Asian countries than with other Western countries. We interpret and discuss the implications of these findings for population aging research, and welfare policies.

The Relationship Between Children's Gender Composition and Parents' All-Cause Mortality Among Older Adults in Korea

Using data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (N = 3,356 participants aged 65 or older) and estimating Cox proportional hazard regression models, this study investigated the association between gender composition of children and parents' mortality risk. This study showed that compared with having both daughters and sons, having exclusively daughters (but not exclusively sons) was associated with higher mortality risk. This association, however, was significant for mothers, but not for fathers. To shed light on source of this association, this study distinguished between mothers with only daughters who receive and do not receive regular financial support from children. Results showed that mothers had elevated mortality risk only if they do not receive regular financial support from their children. Traditional caregiving roles of sons for older parents in Korea may lead to a mortality disadvantage among mothers of daughters vis-à-vis a reduction in financial assistance from children.