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Retirement Plan Participation in an Era of Change: The Case of a Rural Region *
Author(s) -
Whitaker Elizabeth A.,
Bokemeier Janet L.,
Loveridge Scott
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
rural sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.083
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1549-0831
pISSN - 0036-0112
DOI - 10.1111/j.1549-0831.2011.00053.x
Subject(s) - social security , government (linguistics) , context (archaeology) , pension , embeddedness , demographic economics , plan (archaeology) , economics , economic growth , business , labour economics , sociology , finance , geography , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , anthropology , market economy
A bstract Individual savings are critical for retirement as government and employer‐based provisions fade or become less secure. Rural communities are vulnerable given their higher proportion of elderly and more who rely on Social Security. Using a telephone survey of working‐age residents in Michigan's rural Upper Peninsula, this research investigates factors associated with participation in tax‐advantaged retirement plans that have largely replaced defined‐benefit pension plans for earmarked retirement savings. The project also identifies factors predictive of making maximum contributions to those retirement plans. We consider several distinct categories of variables to reflect the social embeddedness of economic action. In addition, the research included community variables describing aspects of respondents' social context, a new component of the savings discourse, which we show to be significantly related to saving outside a tax‐advantaged retirement plan and making maximum contributions to a tax‐advantaged retirement plan.