Description: This report presents the results of a 2005 telephone study among Americans ages 45 to 80. The purpose of the study was to evaluate Americans' awareness of potential financial risks, how this awareness impacts the management of their finances with respect to retirement and how Americans are managing the process of leaving the workforce.

Description: This paper uses data from two longitudinal surveys to examine the relationship between psychological well-being and financial well-being of older women and men, with specific interest in differences by marital status and duration of widowhood. The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study WLS provides a look at the consequences of relatively early widowhood. The Health and Retirement Study HRS has interviewed a representative sample of individuals 50 and older over the last two decades. We use the data from that survey to examine the adjustment to widowerhood over a larger age range, but with likely less precision to measure differences among women of a single age.

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 paper is the final report in a project commissioned by the Society of Actuaries Social Security Committee. The paper considers a variety of possible risk classification factors that could be used in estimating the value of any mortality based benefit for retirees. As many countries consider mandatory individual retirement accounts as their answer to a secure Social Security system, the question arises as to whether all workers can get true 'market value' annuities when they retire. It is clear today that private sector life annuities are priced assuming that the applicant is healthy-very healthy. Very little underwriting or risk classification now exists in the individual annuity marketplace. This paper reviews 45 recent research papers that look at factors that affect mortality after retirement. In particular, factors that seem to be important in predicting retirement mortality include: age, gender, race and ethnicity, education, income, occupation, marital status, religion, health behaviors, smoking, alcohol, and obesity. For each factor, this paper gives highlights relative to the named factor of the impact expected from that variable as described in the 45 reviewed research papers.

Description: The Society of Actuaries and two of its special interest sections, the Pension Section and the Health Section, set about creating a pension plan turnover table for use by actuaries to assist in calculating benefit costs for pension and retiree medical plans. This is the final report about that project.

Description: In this paper, mortality trends of males and females are examined from the beginnings of the human species until the present. Future projections are also made, and the implications of the widening gap in survival rates of women vs. men is discussed.

Description: This report presents the results of a 2003 telephone study among Americans ages 45 to 80. The purpose of the study was to evaluate Americans’ awareness of potential financial risks, how this awareness impacts the management of their finances with respect to retirement and how Americans are managing the process of leaving the workforce.

Description: This report highlights the findings of the 2009 survey and focuses on issues in the survey specifically as they relate to retirement concerns unique to women.

Description: This is an Excel workbook that contains detailed reviews of the literature that was searched in the course of a study that explored pre-retirement influences on attitudes and decisions regarding retirement. The research study, conducted by Linda Smith Brothers, reviewed sixty papers written since 1990, and summarized their important points under several categories. The workbook contains a description of the specific categories covered and how they are addressed by each of the sixty papers that were reviewed.

Description: This paper presents an analysis of the mortality of old-age beneficiaries retired workers aged 65 or over and covers the period 1941-61, based on administrative actions taken through 1962. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1965, Vol. 17, Pt. 1, No. 49.