Pathways to retirement: A career stage analysis of retirement age expectations

Abstract

In western economies with aging populations, organizations are increasingly challenged to understand and manage employees' retirement expectations. At the same time, employees' relationships to retirement decisions and the age at which they expect to retire are likely to change as their careers unfold. This article seeks to inform the careers and management literatures on factors contributing to retirement intentions at different career stages. Using a sample of mid-and late career professionals with MBAs, we find that mid-career professionals expect to retire three years earlier than those in late career (age 62 versus age 65.) Work centrality is associated with intentions to retire later, while positive retirement attitudes and higher income are associated with intentions to retire earlier. Furthermore, the expected retirement age is more sensitive to income at mid-career (than at late career) and is more sensitive to work centrality at

Job Satisfaction, Retirement Attitude and Intended Retirement Age: A Conditional Process Analysis across Workers’ Level of Household Income

“…First, we found that job satisfaction does not exert a direct effect on intended retirement age at any level of household income category and so Hypothesis 1 was not supported with our data. This finding is consistent with the insignificant results found in a number of other studies (McCune and Schmitt, 1981; Taylor and Shore, 1995; Adams and Beehr, 1998; Adams, 1999; Beehr et al, 2000; Davies and Cartwright, 2011; Smith et al, 2011; Post et al, 2013). It seems that we may cautiously conclude that a higher household income does not relax the individual’s complex decision-making process around intended retirement age.…”

“…The findings in this study are also consistent with those of Post et al (2013), who reinforced the importance of financial concerns in influencing retirement intentions, and highlight the importance of context in understanding of socio-economic status in the dynamics of the relationship between work and retirement (Hennekam and Herrbach, 2013). …”

“…We focus on retirement attitude as a valenced generalized cognitive evaluation of the expected state of retirement (Hanisch and Hulin, 1991; Post et al, 2013). This form of retirement attitude is usually a progressive transition, in which an anticipatory attitude is formed in the pre-retirement period before any actual ‘event’ takes place (Atchley, 1976; Pinquart and Schindler, 2007).…”

Desenvolvimento da Escala de Percepção de Futuro da Aposentadoria (EPFA) e Correlatos Psicossociais

“…A centralidade do trabalho aparece como significativa somente para a percepção financeira, demonstrando que o afastamento da vida profissional pode proporcionar melhor vislumbre de futuro financeiro (Selig & Valore, 2010;Topa, Moriano, & Moreno, 2012). Ainda que se discuta que a aposentadoria não necessariamente implica o abandono do trabalho, os dados indicam que promover essa quebra das atividades profissionais como centrais na vida pode facilitar o desenvolvimento de um ponto de vista mais positivo quanto ao futuro sem o trabalho (Post, Schneer, Reitman, & Ogilvie, 2013).…”

Job and Life Attitudes of Managers and Professionals

“…(See McCullough and Laurenceau [] for a longitudinal review of self‐rated health.) Single‐item measures of self‐rated health have been used extensively in national probability samples in the United States and Europe and in longitudinal research on managers (Post, Schneer, Reitman, & olgilvie, ).…”