The Gerontologist, Vol 36, Issue 5 637-648, Copyright © 1996 by The Gerontological Society of America
Understanding the provision of postretirement health care and pension benefits: which firm characteristics are most explanatory?
BA Hirshorn, LE Tetrick and RR Sinclair
Institute for Families in Society. University of South Carolina, Columbia 29208, USA.
This article investigates the impact of firm work force characteristics,
human resource practices, and external environmental attributes upon the
likelihood that a company provides postretirement income and health care
benefits. Using data from a national stratified random sample of 953
companies with 20 or more employees, logistic regression models were
estimated to explore the impact of these three sets of variables on benefit
provision. Results indicate that work force characteristics and human
resources practices contribute considerably to the likelihood that these
benefits are provided and that the impact of some of the more global
characteristics, such as industry, diminishes in a fuller predictive model.
