Given the destandardization of life courses, information on distal life experiences might become even more important toward understanding retirement in the future.

Objectives. Even though in retirement and career theories reference is made to a preretirement work disengagement process among older workers, quantitative empirical knowledge about this process is limited. The aim of this study is to improve our understanding of work disengagement in the preretirement period, by examining the impact of proximity to planned retirement (anticipated future) and work, educational, and health experiences (lived past) on changes of work disengagement during late careers.Method. Using two-wave panel data collected in 2001 and 2006-2007 among Dutch older workers (N = 596), a scale was developed to measure work investments, activities, and motivation during late careers. We estimated conditional change models to examine changes of these scale scores (i.e., disengagement or re-engagement) over the studied period.Results. In line with the preretirement work disengagement process hypothesis, this study shows that many older employees disengage more from work when getting closer to their planned retirement age. Making promotion slows down the disengagement process. Declining health, in contrast, accelerates the process.Discussion. For achieving a comprehensive understanding of the retirement process, not only the lived past but also the anticipated future (i.e., expected time-left in the current state) should be taken into account.

Purpose of the Study:Although the process of adjustment to retirement is often assumed to be related to experiences earlier in life, quantitative empirical insights regarding these relationships are limited. This study aims to improve our understanding of adjustment to the loss of the work role, by conceptualizing retirement as a multidimensional process embedded in the individual life course.Design and Methods:Analyses are based on panel data collected in 2001, 2006–2007, and 2011 among Dutch retirees (N = 1,004). The extent to which retirees miss aspects of the work role (money/income, social contacts, status) is regressed on information about earlier life experiences, resources, and retirement transition characteristics.Results:The incidence of adjustment difficulties varies across dimensions. Predictors differ as well. A steep upward career path is associated with fewer financial adjustment difficulties but with more difficulties adjusting to the loss of status. Compared with continuously married retirees, divorced retirees without a partner are more likely to miss the social dimensions of work and those who repartnered are more likely to miss financial resources. The longer individuals are retired, the less likely they are to miss work-related social contacts.Implications:Changing life course experiences might have important consequences for retirement processes of future retirees.

Although from a life course perspective women's retirement timing can be expected to be related to family events earlier in life, such as childbirth and divorce, empirical insights into these relationships show that women who postponed childbearing and still have children living at home during preretirement years have the intention to retire relatively late. For retirement behavior this effect was not statistically significant. Ever divorced single women both intend to and actually retire later than continuously married women. Repartnering after a divorce seems to offset the negative divorce effect: retirement timing intentions and behavior of repartnered women did not differ from continuously married women. Also the preretirement financial, health, and work opportunity structure -factors that are often central in studies among men -did play an explanatory role. Women who have a less beneficial preretirement financial situation, a better health situation, and challenging work intend to and actually retire relatively late.