In this article, we analyse whether and how, in the context of high female labour market participation and competing exit pathways, Finnish women's retirement differs from men's. We test for the influence of gendered life courses, social stratification, late career vulnerability and sector.Using data from the Finnish Centre for Pensions, we created individual sequences of monthly income statuses between ages 57 and 65 for a cohort born in 1948 (N = 55,971). Following sequence analysis, we identified eight distinct trajectory clusters that represent the variety of labour market withdrawal through the competing exit pathways. We linked these clusters to a set of sociodemographic background variables from Finnish Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data (FLEED). We find that women's retirement trajectories do not differ substantially from men's, but that the factors affecting the take-up of those trajectories show significant differences. Marital status, education, income and especially public sector employment play a greater role in determining the timing and mode of women's retirement. The findings suggest that women's retirement is different because their marital status, education and income has a stronger effect on their attachment to the labour market and because they work in particular female-dominated occupations. 24
Institutional exit pathways shape individual trajectories from work to retirement. In the Netherlands, early retirement schemes as well as disability and unemployment benefits structure the timing and complexity of transitions within such trajectories. Simultaneously, access to these exit pathways depends on the individuals’ entitlements to various social security programmes as well as their freedom to decide on the timing and path of exit. In this study, sequence analysis was applied to register data of primary sources of income with the aim of identifying the main trajectories from work to retirement between the ages of 56 and 66 for a sample of Dutch men and women born between 1943 and 1945 (N = 2,277). Seven distinct trajectories were found: ‘early retirement’, ‘premature retirement’, ‘late retirement’, ‘disability’, ‘unemployment’, ‘inactivity’ and ‘drop-out’. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was applied to investigate the relations of these trajectories with a set of individual and socio-economic characteristics, as well as factors at a firm level. Especially women, non-natives, the lower educated and the self-employed were found to have a greater risk of ending up in the ‘involuntary’ trajectories of late retirement, disability, unemployment and inactivity. Public-sector employees, farmers and craftsmen, and skilled blue-collar workers were less likely to differentiate from the norm of entering into premature retirement between the ages of 60 and 64.
This article analyses whether the trend of extending working lives has coincided with a destabilisation of late careers in Finland. On one hand, reforms that eliminate alternative exit pathways typically have been aimed at simplifying the transition from work to retirement. On the other hand, the need to work longer might entail a risk of increasing transitions between work and non-employment, as well as between jobs. Destabilisation is defined as the process of increasing complexity within individual life-course patterns over time. Using register-based Finnish Linked Employer-Employee Data, complexity within individual sequences of annual labour-market statuses between ages 51 and 65 is calculated for the Finnish population born between 1937 and 1948 (N =238,099). Distinction is made between sequences that only include transitions between employment and non-employment and sequences that include transitions between different jobs as well. Results show that the average late-career complexity has decreased when only transitions between work, unemployment, and pension types are considered, especially among women and the higher-educated. Less change is observed among the lower-educated. When transitions between jobs are included, the results show a slight late-career destabilisation among men and lowereducated, but a decrease in complexity among women and higher-educated. The findings suggest that late-career complexity was increasingly determined by transitions between jobs rather than between spells of employment and non-employment. However, lower-educated older workers continued to be at greater risk of early exit, while at the same time experiencing destabilising employment careers.
During recent decades, labour market participation among older workers in the Netherlands has increased significantly. Postponing workers’ labour market withdrawal potentially makes their retirement patterns more uncertain and less predictable. This article uses Dutch register data to analyse de-standardisation and differentiation of retirement trajectories of men and women born between 1940 and 1946 for the age bracket of 59–65 ( N = 12,843). The results indicate that retirement trajectories of men have become more homogeneous, whereas those of women somewhat more heterogeneous. Simultaneously, retirement patterns of both men and women became more complex from one birth year to another.
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