Couple Retirement Patterns and Retirement Age

:The main purpose of this article is to assess to the extent to which divergent retirement policies in Austria and the United States influence couples’ retirement timing decisions. The Austrian data are from the European Community Household Panel (1995-98), and the U.S. data are from the Health and Retirement Survey (1992-96). Results indicate that in Austria both husbands’ and wives’ retirement age is contingent on the interaction between the age difference of the spouses and their retirement pattern Uoint versus separate), whereas age difference and retirement pattern exert independent influences on spouses’ retirement age in the United States. These results confirm the complex interplay between retirement policies and spouses’ retirement timing preferences.