Research

Under Review

Does Universal Occupational License Recognition Improve Patient Access? Evidence from Healthcare Utilization (w/ Morris M. Kleiner). Working Paper no. 34030, National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w34030

Influence of Work-to-Retirement Trajectories on Cognitive Outcomes in Later Life: Evidence from Health and Retirement Study (w/ Jacqui Smith)

Bridge Jobs as Paths to Working Longer: Do Gender and Retirement Identities Matter? (w/ Phyllis Moen) (Revise & Resubmit at The Journals of Gerontology: Series B).

Work in Progress

Do Non-Competes Restrict Moonlighting for Physicians? Evidence from Policy Changes. (w/ Morris M. Kleiner)

The Influence of Non-Compete Agreements on Workforce Transitions to Retirement

Do Regulations Protect Workers from AI-Driven Job Displacement? Evidence from Occupational Licensing.

Does Artificial Intelligence Change How Workers Retire?

Occupational Licensing of Uber Drivers (w/ Jonathan Hall, Jason Hicks, and Morris M. Kleiner).

Trajectories of Self-Identified Retirement Status and Cognitive Outcomes (w/ Jacqui Smith).

Lifetime Job Complexity Association with Later Life Cognition (w/ Qize Chen, Joanne Hsu, Jacqui Smith, and Amanda Sonnega)

Publications - Economics

Oh, Yun taek, and Morris M. Kleiner. 2025. "The Influence of Occupational Licensing on Workforce Transitions to Retirement." Industrial Relations 64 (4): 643-659. https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12388 

Abstract: Ways of leaving the labor force have been an understudied aspect of labor market outcomes. Labor market institutions such as occupational licensing may influence how individuals transition to retirement. When and how workers transition from career jobs to full retirement may contribute to pre- and post-retirement well-being. Previous investigations of retirement pathways focused on the patterns and outcomes of retirement transitions, yet the influence of occupational licensing on retirement transition has not been analyzed. In this study, we use the Current Population Survey to investigate how occupational licensing influences American later-career workers' choice of retirement pathways. Our results show that older licensed workers are less likely to choose to make career transitions but more likely to reduce work hours in transitioning out of the labor force. These results are consistent with the findings that licensed workers receive more benefits in the form of preferable retirement options, suggesting that these workers tend to have higher wages, benefits, and flexibility even toward the end of their careers. 

Oh, Yun taek. 2023. Three Essays on Bridge Jobs of American Midlife Workers. (Doctoral Dissertation). University of Minnesota ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. 2023. 

Abstract: The prolonged longevity has not only increased the duration of work lives but also the number of choices for the processes of retirement transition. One of the common options for these processes is called bridge jobs, defined as any paid labor market activities that connect one’s career and complete withdrawal from the labor force. While the increasing need for studies on bridge jobs, there are relatively few studies done from an economic perspective.

In this dissertation, I mainly focused on bridge jobs as an important phase of the work lives that older workers go through. The first two chapters investigated the effects of switching occupations in later life, as bridge jobs, on retirement and health outcomes of American midlife workers. These studies contribute to the iv retirement literature by reemphasizing the importance of job characteristics, such as physical demandingness, which matters in older workers’ retirement transition.

In the last chapter, I investigated the effect of occupational licensing on the decision of having bridge jobs. Occupational licensing is known to have several impacts on the labor market through its supply restriction, training and investment, and higher wages and fringe benefits. Extending these impacts to the labor market of older workers who are at the time of leaving their career jobs, I analyzed how being licensed affects the choices of bridge jobs during the process of retirement transitions.

Publications - Workforce Aging and Retirement

Oh, Y.T. (2026). Historical Shifts in Later Work-Life Quality, Retirement Plans, and Pathways Among Older Union Workers: A Comparison of Two Birth Cohorts. The Gerontologist. gnag045. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnag045 

Abstract:

Background and Objectives

This study examines the changes in the role of labor unions on objective and subjective assessments of work-life qualities, retirement plans, and choice of retirement pathways by comparing two birth cohorts of older US adults with 18-year differences.

Research Design and Methods

The first five waves of the initial HRS cohort (born 1937-1942, n = 960) and Mid Baby Boomers (born 1954-1959, n = 805) from the Health and Retirement Study 1992-2018 were used. The Current Population Survey was used for obtaining industry-level union shares, the percentage of union-covered workers, for each cohort. Propensity score matching was used to examine the assessments of work-life qualities and retirement plans. Clustered competing risk analysis with propensity score matching was used to examine the choice of retirement pathways.

Results

Although decreasing over time, the objective aspects of later work-life qualities remain better for union-covered workers. Yet, union-covered workers are more likely to negatively assess the subjective aspects of work-life qualities. The historical shifts in retirement norms negatively impacted the subjective assessment of work-life qualities and retirement plans. The share of labor unions had differential impacts on later work-life qualities and retirement plans from union coverage status. The choice of retirement pathways differs by union coverage and birth cohort.

Discussion and Implications

Labor unions played important roles in shaping American workers’ later work lives and retirement transitions. These roles have changed over the last several decades due to the historical shifts in labor unions and retirement norms.

Oh, Y.T. (2025). Occupational Licensing in Later Life: Changing Older Workers’ Work and Retirement Behaviors Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Gerontologist. gnaf247. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnaf247

Abstract:

Background and Objectives

Occupational licensing is the fastest-growing labor market institution, and a significant portion of newly licensed individuals are older workers. This study introduces occupational licensing as an influential factor of later-life work and retirement by investigating the sociodemographic and economic characteristics of older workers newly attaining licenses and the choices of work adjustments after attaining licenses, as well as measuring the changes in these trends before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research Design and Methods

I use the sample of workers aged between 50 and 60 from the IPUMS-CPS 2017-2019 (n = 3,831) and 2023-2025 (n = 2,674). I use propensity score matching to investigate the sociodemographic and economic characteristics of older workers newly attaining licenses, multinomial logistic regression with two-stage residual inclusion to examine the choice of work adjustments after newly attaining licenses, and linear regression to predict the reasons for newly attaining licenses.

Results

Older workers with more resources, from historically underrepresented groups, and self-employed are more likely to newly attain licenses, yet there is no statistical difference in license attainment before and after the pandemic. Attaining licenses increases the likelihood of moving to different employers before and after the pandemic, yet the reason for moving cannot be determined: career development or bridge employment.

Discussion and Implications

Prolonging the labor force participation of older workers is a growing interest. Subsidizing older workers’ license attainment will contribute to prolonging their labor force participation by providing financial, psychological, and social benefits throughout their remaining work life-course.

Moen, P, & Y.T. Oh. (2025). A Conceptual Framework of Work and Retirement Pathways. In The Oxford Handbook of Retirement. (2nd Ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197699584.003.0004 

Abstract:

Retirement as a later life course status passage is in flux. It has become a process, a do-it-yourself project unfolding over time, rather than a single, irreversible exit around age 65. However, it is an unequal process, as older adults with different work histories and resources and confronting diverse opportunities and constraints navigate patterned pathways on the way to a final workforce exit. This chapter proposes an institutional life course framing of alternative pathways, considering the ways they are molded by macro-level social structures and logics, including discrimination and constrained opportunities at the intersections of age, gender, class, and race/ethnicity, together with other contexts. Demographic, technological, economic, and social transformations are challenging conventional, institutional logics in the form of widely accepted norms and expectations around work, retirement, age, and the later life course, paving the way for shifts—and heightened inequalities—in later adult work/retirement paths. These macro-level forces, in turn, shape micro-level situational exigencies, subjective assessments, and the strategic selections by older women and men as they seek to customize their own work/retirement trajectories and transitions in the absence of standardized blueprints. The chapter concludes by summarizing the value of this theoretical framing, proposing a research agenda addressing institutional changes unraveling—and possibly reframing—later life course scripts. 

Oh, Y. T. (2024). Bridge Employment or Encore Career? Examining Predictors That Distinguish Later-Life Career Transitions. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 79(8), gbae104. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbae104 

Abstract: 

Objectives

Bridge employment and encore careers are 2 prevalent retirement pathways that have different goals and outcomes. Yet, “changing jobs in later life” is the shared prequel that blurs the distinction between them in empirical studies. This study proposes a set of criteria—voluntariness of career transition and the duration of work in the post-transition job—to distinguish various retirement pathways and investigates the predictors that distinguish the workers’ choice of these pathways.

Methods

I conducted multinomial logistic regression to examine the predictors that distinguish between bridge employment, encore career, and direct workforce exit using the longitudinal sample of respondents with full-time career jobs in the Health and Retirement Study 1992–2020 (HRS, N = 2,038). To examine the predictors that distinguish between bridge employment and encore careers, I conducted logistic regression on the subsample of respondents who chose either bridge employment or encore careers (n = 927).

Results

The results show that the accumulated human capital from career jobs, physical and mental health conditions before leaving career jobs, and self-identified retirement status when transitioning to new jobs distinguish the workers’ choices of taking on different retirement pathways.

Discussion

Maintaining the labor force participation of older workers is an important human resource agenda for policymakers. This study suggests that increasing the number of quality jobs for older workers would promote bridge employment and encore careers by raising the benefits of making career transitions as well as improving older workers’ health.