The Evolution of Retirement

Dora Costa's 1998 University of Chicago Press monograph is the first comprehensive economic history of retirement in America covering 1880 through 1990, and it won the Paul A. Samuelson Award from TIAA-CREF — peer validation that matters in this field. Her central argument, that rising incomes drove retirement rates far more than Social Security alone, is rigorously supported through statistical and demographic analysis. For academic economists, policy researchers, and advanced economic history students, this is a landmark text. The honest caveat is equally plain: this is a technical monograph, not a general-audience book, and readers without an economics background will find the statistical sections demanding. Published before the 401(k) shift and the gig economy reshaped the retirement landscape, some policy context has dated. Essential for its intended audience; inaccessible to everyone else.