Description: Email discussion that took place prior to the Housing in Retirement Round Table.

Description: This report provides background on U.S. trends in the timing of retirement, the claiming of benefits behavior, including discussion of labor force participation trends, the timing of commencement of Social Security, phased retirement alternatives, work as part of retirement, and the effects of retirement plan participation on these decisions. This study evaluates several of the more common retirement timing and claiming strategies using a retirement simulation model that incorporates investment, inflation, health and long-term care risks. Results of these simulations provide insight into the comparative risk exposures and costs of various retirement timing and claiming strategies for typical retiree households.

Description: This study builds on the prior studies, Measures of Retirement Benefit Adequacy and Improving Retirement Outcomes: Timing, Phasing, and Benefit Claiming, with a specific focus on how longevity impacts household financial needs in retirement and which strategies can best address these financial strains. A major conclusion from this research is that the risk of living long should be more carefully incorporated in household retirement planning.

Description: The Society of Actuaries SOA developed the ‘Risks and Process of Retirement Survey Report’ to help identify retirement risks and raise awareness of approaches to manage those risks. The survey analyzes the leading retirement risks of men and women, ages 45 to 80, who are either retired or still in the workforce. This document provides a summary of the results and provides information on how to obtain the Survey Report’s summary or a full report.

Description: This research provides a literature review on the topic of post-retirement financial strategies from the perspective of an individual who is approaching retirement age. The body of knowledge surveyed is the post-retirement financial strategies literature that is related to the risks of longevity, inflation, and investment. The literature sources are both academic and practitioner-focused. The end product is a documentation of and commentary on the state-of-the-art in the post-retirement financial strategies area. The intended audience is retirement professionals, and others, who need to be well informed about the current state of post-retirement financial strategies, as reported in the literature.

Description: This is the Phase II report of a two–phase effort. The Phase I report, released in March 2009, consists of defining relevant and actionable consumer segments among middle–income/mid–level net worth households. This Phase II report defines a basic approach that could lead to a set of answers or 'solutions' that address the retirement risks faced by each segment. A second objective of Phase II is to provide insight regarding the nature of the retirement risks faced by varying segments of consumers and suggestions for solutions that address those risks.

Description: This report provides key findings from the 2005 Risks and Process of Retirement Survey related to issues of particular importance to women. The report also focuses on differences and similarities in the retirement risks faced by men and women.

Description: This issue brief focuses on the importance of analyzing the pros and cons of taking a lump sum or monthly annuity payments upon retirement from the workforce.

Description: The purpose of the latest in this series, the 2005 Risks and Process of Retirement Survey, is to evaluate Americans’ awareness of such risks, how their awareness has changed since 2003, and how it affects the way they manage their finances. This report focuses on attitudes toward longevity specifically in the context of planning for and managing the financial risk of outliving assets in retirement, and relates the public’s understanding of these issues to other studies. Three other reports cover in greater depth the process of retirement, other post-retirement risks, and retirement issues of special concern to women. The 2001, 2003 and 2005 studies separately analyzed current retirees and those not yet retired, referred to in these reports as ‘pre-retirees.’