We are saddened to announce that Professor Marjorie Honig, long time chair of the Economics and Accounting Department at Hunter College, passed away on August 15, 2019.
Professor Honig earned a BA from Chatham College, an MIA from the School of International Affairs at Columbia, and a PhD from Columbia. After working at the University of Illinois, Rutgers University, and the Division of Basic Research at the National Insurance Institute of Israel, she came to Hunter in 1981 and served as chair for thirty-three years. She was a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, co-editor of the Social Insurance Research Network (SIRN) series on Social Security, Pensions, and Retirement Income, and served on the advisory boards of the Michigan Retirement Research Consortium and the Brookdale National Fellowship Program. She also served as co-director of research at the International Longevity Center, a research and policy institution concerned with the implications of population aging.
Professor Honig maintained an active research career in labor economics in addition to her administrative, teaching, and advisory duties. She pioneered the study of women in the labor market with her 1971 PhD dissertation, “The Impact of the Welfare System on Labor Supply and Family Stability: A Study of Female Heads of Families.” Her later research focused on the economics of aging and retirement, including the adequacy of saving for retirement, the labor supply effects of employer pensions and Social Security, 401(k)s, health insurance, and other employment-based benefits, job loss among older workers, and household wealth accumulation. Her articles appeared in many books and journals, including American Economics Review, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Labor Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Journal of Public Economics.
