Social Security and Retirement during Transition: Microeconometric Evidence from Slovenia. ENEPRI Research Reports No. 58, October 2008

This paper analyses old-age retirement decisions of Slovenian men and women eligible to retire in the period 1997-2003. In addition to established market economies, relatively high hazard rates of retirement are found, which decline with age. This peculiar pattern can be partly attributed to weak incentives to work inherent in the design of social security and is reflected in predominantly negative values of accruals and to transition-specific increases in wage inequality in the late 1980 and early 1990s. The authors also find that the probability of retirement increases with social security wealth and decreases with net wages, although the response to option value to work, with controlling for wage differences, is rather weak. The results also imply that less educated persons, persons with great private wealth and persons entitled to severance payment are more likely to retire