Hours flexibility and retirement

Data from the Health and Retirement Study indicate that hours constraints are a common feature of jobs held by workers nearing retirement. We present a simple model that predicts that workers who are not free to lower their usual hours of work should be more likely than their unconstrained counterparts to retire by some future date. Our estimates, which are robust to various specifications, support this prediction. The amount by which being hours constrained is estimated to raise retirement probabilities is nearly as large as the effect of being in relatively poor health, suggesting an economically significant effect.