The COVID-19 Effect on Retirement Preparation Through Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plans

This paper examines how COVID-19 affects retirement preparation through employer-sponsored retirement plans, as well as the moderating role of COVID-19’s impact on various socioeconomic and demographic variables related to employee participation in and contributions to employer-sponsored retirement plans. Our results indicate that COVID-19 has a significant negative effect on participation rates; however, once employees participate, they tend to contribute more of their percent of pay to employer-sponsored retirement plans during and after COVID-19. The results are mixed in terms of the moderating effects of COVID-19 on the previously documented socioeconomic and demographic variables.