Health- and Age-Related Workplace Factors as Predictors of Preferred, Expected, and Actual Retirement Timing: Findings from a Swedish Cohort Study

To address the challenges of demographic aging, governments and organizations encourage extended working lives. This study investigates how individual health- and age-related workplace factors contribute to preferred, expected and actual retirement timing, as well as to the congruency between preferences vs. expectations, and preferences vs. actual retirement. We used data from a representative Swedish longitudinal sample comprising 4058 workers aged 50-64, with follow-up data regarding actual retirement timing available for 1164 respondents. Multinomial logistic regression analyses suggest that later preferred, expected, and actual retirement timing were, to different extent, influenced by better health, an age-friendly workplace and feeling positive regarding the future at work. Emotional exhaustion, age-related inequalities at work and experiencing aging as an obstacle increased the likelihood of preferring to retire earlier than one expected to, over retiring at the time one expected to. Those with better health and positive work prospects were less likely to prefer retiring earlier than they expected to, and more likely to being "pulled toward working until 65 and beyond", compared to being "pulled toward early retirement". Experiencing aging as an obstacle decreased the chances of being "pulled toward working until 65 and beyond". The results provide insights on how to facilitate extended working lives.

Partners' adjustment to older workers' retirement: testing the role of preretirement expectations in a 10-year panel study

Objectives: Retirement is not only an important later-life transition for the retiring individual, but also for his or her life partner. This study aims to improve our understanding of the partner's adjustment to the retirement of the older worker, by paying attention to the multidimensional nature of adjustment, and by examining to what extent preretirement expectations are predictive of postretirement experiences. Well-established adjustment predictors - i.e. preretirement resources and characteristics of the work and retirement context - are also taken into account. Method: Analyses are based on Dutch three-wave multi-actor panel data, collected between 2001 and 2011 among 724 partners of older workers who transitioned into retirement during the course of the study. Results: Only a minority of the partners reported adjustment difficulties to the retirement of the employee. About 20 percent reported at least some financial problems, 8 percent reported relationship problems, and 10 percent reported problems with shared leisure time. Expected problems in all three domains were predictive of experienced problems in the same domain. For expected financial problems, a cross-over effect was observed: expected financial problems were also predictive of experienced adjustment difficulties with regards to shared leisure activities. Conclusion: Not only the older worker, but also the partner develops expectations on different dimensions about the shared postretirement future, and these expectations are related to postretirement experiences. Retirement counseling may therefore not only be relevant for older workers, but also for their partners, and needs to take the multidimensional character of retirement processes into account.