The Relation of Extended Life to Extended Employment since the Passage of Social Security in 1935

Proposals to raise the full retirement age for workers assume that, because Americans are living longer, they are living with less morbidity. But current data on rates of sickness are inadequate for conclusions about the degree of sickness or functional health. Any solution to policy issues that assumes biomedical and psychosocial homogeneity of the elderly population-at any age-is bound to be unfair and unwise.

Author(s): Robert N. Butler

Download the Article

Read on JSTOR

Volume 61, Issue 3 (pages 420–429)
Published in 1983