Understanding the Aging Workforce Defining a Research Agenda (2022) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Work and Retirement Pathways
3 Work and Retirement Pathways
Pages 59-76
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 59... ...
Further, we consider the proximal forces that shape older adults' work and retirement pathways, which include the preferences, expectations, and experienced constraints regarding their workforce participation. We review research findings regarding these forces, especially on the effects of their various empirical referents and variables.
|
From page 60... ...
For adults in this 1931–1941 cohort who had fully exited the workforce by 2016, 53 percent of men and 53 percent of women took on bridge jobs or re-entered workforce after retiring from their career jobs. These labor force status patterns by year are plotted in Figure 3-1 (for private-sector men)
|
From page 61... ...
Among older cohorts that presage the Baby Boom generation's entrance into retirement, unconventional retirement sequences are more commonly followed by women than men, by middle-educated individuals than lower- and higher-educated individuals, and by White and Black Americans than Hispanic Americans. The experiences of those now in the conventional retirement years (the large Baby Boom cohort -- the 76 million men and women born between 1946 and 1964)
|
From page 62... ...
As we will discuss in more detail later in this chapter, we consider older workers' preferences, expectations, and experienced constraints to be proximal forces that shape their workforce participation in later life.
|
From page 63... ...
TABLE 3-1 Theoretical Approaches Theoretical Approaches Key References Rational choice theory Lazear, 1986; Hanoch and Honig, 1983; Blinder and Weiss, 1976 Theory of planned behavior Ajzen, 1991 Role theory Barnes-Farrell, 2003; Ashforth, 2001 The life course perspective Elder and Johnson, 2003; Elder, 1995 Meaningful life King and Hicks, 2021 Socioemotional selectivity theory Carstensen et al., 1999; Carstensen, 1991
|
From page 64... ...
Finally, perceived behavior control, that is, a person's perception of the ease or difficulty of performing the behavior of interest, is closely linked to constraints experienced by older workers when making workforce exit decisions. Together, these three dimensions -- expected value, subjective norms, and perceived control about work and retirement -- powerfully predict an individual's intentions, which in turn reliably predicts their planned behavior.
|
From page 65... ...
. Overall, the life course perspective can be thought of as an expansion of the economic/rational choice model, one that includes a richer set of factors that can affect the subjective expected utility of work vs.
|
From page 66... ...
. Summary These five theoretical perspectives -- rational choice theory, the theory of planned behavior, role theory, the life course perspective, meaningful life approach, and socioemotional selectivity theory -- offer different framings of older adults' decision-making around paid and unpaid work and retirement paths.
|
From page 67... ...
In the past, given their more variable attachments to the labor force, women have tended to tailor their work exits around those of their husbands, but this is changing as women begin to remain in the workforce throughout the life course, even when their children are young (Moen et al., 2006)
|
From page 68... ...
Constraints Constraints for Work and Retirement Pathways In addition to preferences and expectations, constraints also shape workforce exit pathways for older workers. Economic and health resources and shocks, such as changes in Social Security or Medicare policy, chronic strains, such as burnout and precarity, and family caregiving responsibilities and the circumstances of spousal work and income all influence both preferences for and the actual timing of exits (Fast et al., 2020; Keating et al., 2019; Stoilko and Strough, 2019; Kalleberg, 2018; Gustafson, 2017; Beehr and Feldman 2011; Raymo and Sweeney, 2006; Moen et al., 2006; Dentinger and Clarkberg, 2002)
|
From page 69... ...
. For example, studies using HRS data of the initial wave of the Baby Boom cohort show that they are apt to take alternative work options at later ages than earlier cohorts, that poor health leads to bridge jobs (Cahill et al., 2019)
|
From page 70... ...
Indeed, although older workers in large numbers have reported an interest in continuing work past conventional retirement ages, there is a question about the extent to which jobs will be available to them. In the 2017 Retirement Confidence Survey1 of American workers, only 27 percent of individuals ages 65 and older report that they have actually been able to continue working as long as planned (Greenwald et al., 2017)
|
From page 71... ...
. Black and Hispanic Americans, as well as women, in their 50s and 60s are more likely to experience involuntary job separation and less likely to be reemployed, resulting in labor force withdrawal (Flippen and Tienda, 2000)
|
From page 72... ...
Older adults, in that study, report wanting to continue working until they are unable to do so; and respondents report a lack of tradition in terms of preparedness for retirement, saying their parents never spoke to them about a plan for retirement. Life Course Disparities in Work and Retirement Pathways Looked at in light of the life course cumulative advantage/disadvantage thesis (Dannefer, 2020; DiPrete and Eirich, 2006; O'Rand, 1996)
|
From page 73... ...
Gender-based Heterogeneity in Bridge Employment Decision Making According to social gender role theory, gender roles are formed as a result of people's social beliefs about gender differences in psychological and behavioral characteristics (Eagly et al., 2000)
|
From page 74... ...
Past studies on the work and retirement pathways of earlier populations of older workers who faced very different organizational and economic environments may not apply to the experiences of contemporary older workers. Moreover, the timing of external events in the later life course matter.
|
From page 75... ...
We also summarized the main theories and empirical findings that explain the various work and retirement pathways for older adults. These offer a foundation for us to dive further, in subsequent chapters, into more detailed individual and household factors, workplace and job factors, and labor market factors that can shape work and retirement pathways.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.