Life-course events and later-life employment

Abstract

This report examines relationships between men's and women's life-course experiences and their employment trajectories between the ages of 50 and 70. The analysis used two sources of longitudinal data: the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the ONS Longitudinal Study (LS), to examine the effects on employment after 50 of both earlier life-course events (such as educational achievement, labour market entry and family formation) and later life determinants (such as health and disability, individual pension savings and pension entitlements and job characteristics such as physical strains and job autonomy). The report compares the importance of early and later life factors, and also investigates how early lifecourse events act indirectly through their influence on later life determinants of employment exit. The Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) was commissioned to carry out this study.