Productive Activity in Later Life

The authors examined time spent on paid and unpaid work across the life course and historically to reflect on connections between activity patterns and macroeconomic events. The authors conducted quasi-cohort analysis on time-use data over 30 years to examine trends in paid and unpaid work. Women aged 40 years and older spent more time on paid work and less time on unpaid work between 1971 and 1998. Men’s paid work time decreased between 1971 and 1981 and between 1992 and 1998 but increased between 1981 and 1992, paralleling economic cycles. Paid work declined in later life, both in cross-sections and within birth cohorts, for men and women, and it declined more rapidly with each successive survey year. Unpaid work peaked around the usual retirement age for men and women in all birth cohorts. Retired seniors remained engaged in productive activities into later life, making a partial substitution of one form of productive engagement for another.