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In this study the authors examine whether bridge employees tend to hold non-standard jobs, and if so, whether non-standard job choice is deliberate. Moreover, the authors examine whether fulfillment of employment expectations affects the personal and work attitudes of bridge employees.

The authors' research and hypotheses are supported and developed through psychological contract theory. The authors collected data from 195 bridge employees, employed in a variety of jobs, through an online survey. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical multiple regression.

This study suggests that some bridge employees may engage in non-standard employment deliberately. Moreover, we show that fulfillment of perceived obligation by employers (psychological contract) is associated with personal and work attitudes (life satisfaction, job satisfaction, affective commitment, normative commitment and intentions to stay) of bridge employees.

While this study supports psychological contract theory as an important framework for understanding bridge employment, sample size, cross-sectional data and a lack of diversity in the sample limit causality, generalizability and data robustness. Future research should strive to replicate and extend the current findings.

The present study underlines the importance of designing jobs to meet the expectations of bridge employees. Also, it highlights the preference of bridge employees to engage in non-standard employment.

The authors extend bridge employment research by empirically examining the relationship between unmet employment expectations and the personal and work attitudes of bridge employees.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which perceived financial preparedness, social retirement anxieties, and level of income influence mature aged workers' preferences to enter different retirement employment options within the contingent and the flexible work arrangements (FWA) types of bridge employment.

Data for this study was collected in 2008 using a questionnaire with 31 items. A total of 144 mature aged workers from multiple firms, aged 50 years and over, working full‐time, in the construction industry participated in the study. The collected data was analysed using correlation and regression analyses.

The results indicate that the study variables have positive and negative influences on pre‐retirees' preference for the retirement employment options within the contingent and the FWA bridge employment. It was also found that while income failed to moderate, social retirement anxieties did significantly moderate the relationship between perceived financial preparedness and the different employment options within the contingent bridge employment.

This study clearly provides practitioners and career counsellors a new insight that the work and non‐work predictors for the retirement employment options within each of the contingent and the FWA bridge employments vary between factors of perceived financial preparedness, social retirement anxieties and level of income.

In contradiction to the existing literature that “comfortable” social retirement adjustment as a determinant for bridge employment, this study's findings revealed that if pre‐retirees perceive that they are not adequately financially prepared for retirement, they would opt for bridge employment irrespective of levels of social retirement anxieties.

Few studies aim to uniquely conceptualize the experiences of bridge employees after they enter the workforce. Supported by the psychological contract theory and the self-determination theory, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the bridge employment experience by examining how the expectations of bridge employees shape their experiences.

This paper first reviews the extant literature on bridge employment. It then discusses the psychological contract theory and the self-determination theory, and examines the expectations of bridge employees through the theoretical perspectives of these two theories, to examine experiences in bridge employment.

Discord in the bridge employment relationship may be attributed to a lack of understanding of the implicit expectations of bridge employees. More specifically, unmet expectations may be detrimental to the bridge employment experience, and ultimately jeopardize both employer and employee outcomes.

This paper examines expectations and experiences of bridge employees from a theoretical perspective. Theoretical tenets are utilized to analyze how and why implicit expectations may influence bridge employees in ways that result in detrimental outcomes for both employers and employees.

This paper sheds light on why bridge employment arrangements may result in adverse outcomes. Specifically, when there is a lack of understanding between bridge employees’ expectations and experiences, both individual and organizational outcomes may be impaired. An improved understanding of the bridge employment experience will likely result in an enhanced working relationship between bridge employees and employers, and minimize misunderstandings about this cohort of the workforce.

Using the guidelines of the psychological contract theory and the self-determination theory, we develop a model to examine how expectation of bridge employees may affect the experiences and ultimately, the outcomes of bridge employment. The authors also identify factors uniquely applicable to bridge employees. This is the first paper that examines the experiences of bridge employees through such theoretical perspectives.

Based on the role theory, this study examines whether workplace age discrimination indirectly relates to older workers' bridge employment intentions through work meaningfulness.

Study 1 used two-wave time-lagged survey data from one hundred and seventy nurses (≥45 years old) from the Midwestern United States. Study 2 used three-wave time-lagged survey data from one hundred and eighty-six employees from a wide range of occupations in the United States. The online survey contains various self-reports on workplace age discrimination, work meaningfulness, affective commitment, and bridge employment intentions.

Results in Study 1 found that workplace age discrimination was negatively and indirectly related to older nurses' bridge employment intentions through their experiences of work meaningfulness. Results in Study 2 further confirmed the mediating role of work meaningfulness in the relationship between age discrimination and bridge employment intentions, above and beyond the role of affective commitment.

This study contributes to the research by testing the indirect relationship between workplace age discrimination and older workers' bridge employment intentions through work meaningfulness, further raising our awareness of the importance of social and interpersonal experiences in older workers' preretirement jobs to their late-career development.

Population aging, and changes in labor force participation among older adults, will have tremendous impacts on the aging workforce. Thus it is imperative that the factors that influence whether older workers will continue in their career employment, engage in bridge employment, or fully retire, should be understood better. This paper aims to focus on these issues.

In the present study longitudinal data for 2,869 older workers from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data set in the USA were used to examine the influence of demographic (e.g. income), nonwork related factors (e.g. marital satisfaction), and work related factors (e.g. job involvement) on late‐life employment decisions over a ten year period from 1992 to 2002.

The results indicate a wide variety of factors impact employment decisions later in life. Specifically, it was found that work related factors of job involvement and schedule flexibility, as well as the nonwork related factors of certainty of retirement plans, attitudes toward retirement, and job seeking self‐efficacy all distinguished the various employment statuses (e.g. completely retired, partly retirement, and not retired at all) of older workers over a ten year period.

This study shows that both individuals and organizations need to examine a wide variety of factors when examining bridge employment decisions at the end of workers' careers. While most studies of bridge employment use cross‐sectional data, this paper uses longitudinal data to examine actual bridge employment decisions, rather that prospective desires or potentially faulty after‐the‐fact retrospective accounts.

This paper seeks to provide librarians and library administrators with the necessary information to begin thinking about and perhaps preparing for the large number of retirements that are projected to take place in the library profession over the coming decade.

The paper broadens the library literature related to the retention and recruitment of older employees with concepts derived from the relevant demographic, management, medical and personnel literature.

The profession has not given this problem the time and research attention that is required to successfully manage through the projected “labor gap”. Librarians possess transferable skills and work habits that would be welcomed by corporations attempting to cope with their own labor shortages that are projected to cut across industry and occupational classes over the next decade. Therefore, library administrators should consider developing satisfactory bridge employment options that retain and attract the older or retired library employee.

The preponderance of the literature consulted for this article was assembled from sources outside of the field of library management. Therefore, library administrators who would use the information contained in this paper to develop viable bridge employment options, are cautioned to develop programs that reflect the unique operational realities of the library they work for and the post‐retirement needs of their employees.

The paper provides a useful review of the library and management literature related to the establishment of bridge employment options in the library environment. The paper concludes by introducing the importance of utilizing mathematical and statistical modeling techniques to determine, where possible, the economic value of the services to the stakeholders served. This information is presented with the objective of increasing awareness, debate and additional research in this neglected but critically important area of “value analysis” and its possible impact on the development of sustainable, long‐term solutions to the problems associated with recruitment and retention.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Age discrimination is found to indirectly and negatively relate to older nurses’ bridge employment intentions through work meaningfulness. In addition work meaningfulness is found to have a mediating role in the relationship between age discrimination and bridge employment intentions above and beyond the potential role of affective commitment.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

As demographic changes impact the workplace, governments, organizations, and workers are looking for ways to sustain optimal working lives at higher ages. Workplace flexibility has been introduced as a potential way workers can have more satisfying working lives until their retirement ages. This chapter presents a critical review of the literature on workplace flexibility across the lifespan. It discusses how flexibility has been conceptualized across different disciplines, and postulates a definition that captures the joint roles of employer and employee in negotiating workplace flexibility that contributes to both employee and organization benefits. Moreover, it reviews how flexibility has been theorized and investigated in relation to older workers. The chapter ends with a future research agenda for advancing understanding of how workplace flexibility may enhance working experiences of older workers, and in particular focuses on the critical investigation of uses of flexibility in relation to older workers.

In the context of an aging workforce and uncertain labor markets, it is a priority to identify and analyze what factors influence intentions regarding motivation to continue working, how and when to retire. From the life course perspective, this paper aims to capture the individual agency and structure perceptions to withdrawal from work early/late intentions in the mid- and late-career, identifying voluntary/involuntary factors underlying these intentions.

Hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analyses based on a cross-sectional design, with a representative sample of 414 Chilean workers over the age of 45.

The results depict several patterns of contextual factors operating at different levels underlying mid- and late-career-related intentions. Specifically, they identify how perceptions of individual agency and structure are significantly associated with voluntary and involuntary factors that guide intentions to stay working or retire early, as well as to prolong working life and to lean toward bridge employment.

This study contributes to identifying perceptions of individual agency and structure in career intentions and can help individuals and organizations clarify the voluntary and involuntary factors behind work–life intentions in their middle and final career stages. In addition, the results can contribute to international research in this field by providing information on the underrepresented Ibero-American context.

The dual forces of an increasing dependency ratio and lower labor market participation on the part of mature individuals does not bode well for the American and European Communities. To begin to better understand such macro influences, changing demographic trends in the U.S. and European community with regard to the aging population and workforce participation are reviewed. In addition, recent research which continues to dispel the myth of a negative relationship between age and job performance is reviewed. A more informative way of looking at possible relationships between age and job performance is presented. A variety of contingent work arrangements and flexible employment policies are reviewed as a potential solution to the decreased supply of skilled labor for employers and the need for continued income and community involvement on the part of mature individuals. In addition, a call for a redefinition of how we currently view retirement is sounded. We conclude with recommendations for both employers and mature individuals on dealing with the issues presented.