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Using the job demands-resources (JD-R) model as a theoretical framework, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how job demands and job resources affect older employees’ desired retirement age, through an energy-depletion and a motivational process. Furthermore, the importance of gain and loss cycles (i.e. recursive effects) for the desired retirement age was investigated.

A two wave full panel design with 2,897 older employees ( > 50) served to test the hypotheses. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the measurement and research model. Cross-lagged analyses tested the presence of gain and loss cycles.

Results from cross-lagged analyses based on two waves over a one-year period indicated the presence of both a gain and a loss cycle that affected the desired retirement age.

This is the first longitudinal study applying the JD-R model to a retirement context. Limitations relate to employing only two waves for establishing mediation, and using self-reports.

Because work conditions can create a cycle of motivation as well as a cycle of depletion, organizations should pay special attention to the job resources and demands of older workers. The findings can inspire organizations when developing active aging policies, and contribute to interventions aimed at maintaining older employees within the workforce until – or even beyond – their official retirement age in a motivated and healthy way.

This is the first longitudinal study applying the JD-R model to a retirement context and finding evidence for gain and loss cycles.

The desired retirement age (DRA) becomes more important because some countries adapt their strict retirement regulations to it. A process is tested for how psychological empowerment influences the DRA mediated by psychological and physical strain and how the DRA is connected to the expected retirement age (ERA). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Structured interviews with 1,485 German employees (55 years and older) were conducted via telephone.

Psychological and physical strain mediated both the relationship between psychological empowerment and the DRA. DRA and ERA were positively associated. The control variables – age, net income, and organizational size – also significantly affected the DRA.

The results are only valid for the German job market. All variables were collected at one measurement point.

The strengthening of psychological empowerment can be one measure to motivate older employees to delay their retirement and finally keep them longer in the labor force.

A large sample was collected and interviewed via telephone, which helps to overcome some limitations of questionnaire research. The process model helps to understand how job characteristics are connected with the DRA and the ERA.

This chapter explores whether and how does the interplay of institutional context and management interventions lead older workers to delay retirement in Germany, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. The most important factors that influence retirement plans are placed on three analytical levels: the individual, the workplace and the institutional levels. It explores the importance of these factors and their cross-national variation in three different countries, namely Germany, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. Using three national datasets we explore the relationship between the aforementioned factors via descriptive statistics and linear regression models. Institutional regulations seem to matter for retirement plans. But within countries, plans show varying patterns across social groups (lower educated, financially disadvantaged). The comparative design does not allow analysing specific institutional features directly, but findings are indicative for the fact that individuals take institutional frameworks into account when planning retirement transitions. The findings call for regime-specific solutions and future policies, for example, age-friendly workplace conditions and opportunities for requalification and mobility in Germany, rising retirement ages and greater financial security via more generous universal pension rights in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.

Issues associated with retirement in general, and phased transitions into retirement in particular, are taking on increased importance for a variety of reasons. Outlines those reasons, paying particular attention to the practice of mandatory retirement. Presents age dependency ratios for the OECD to highlight the importance of these issues in the context of an ageing and longer‐lived workforce relative to a smaller working age population. Then discusses the prevalence of mandatory retirement in Canada and the USA, and presents empirical evidence from Canada on variables associated with retiring because of mandatory retirement. The Canadian case is of particular interest, because mandatory retirement in Canada has generally not been banned, which is in marked contrast with the situation in the USA, where it has been banned as constituting age discrimination. The public and legal debate over the issue of mandatory retirement has also been extensive in Canada, and this debate may provide information for other countries dealing with the issue. Ends with an assessment of the extent to which mandatory retirement exerts a constraining influence on transitions into retirement. The essential argument is that its constraining impact is not as simple as it may initially appear. To the extent that mandatory retirement is an intricate part of the compensation and human resource function of firms, banning it can have important implications for those functions and, in turn, for transitions into retirement. The complexities of these issues and dramatically increasing old‐age dependency ratios will ensure that this is an area of growing importance for public policy and human resource management.

The purpose of this study is two‐fold. The first is to relate the negative image of older workers to stereotype threat and to propose that effective retention management should start by replacing this negative image. The second is to assess the needs, perceptions and preferences of older workers regarding their career‐ending.

A total of 266 employer questionnaires and 1,290 older worker questionnaires identified the employers' perceptions of older workers and the career‐ending needs and preferences of older workers.

The results provide indirect support for the hypothesis that the negative image of older workers forms a self‐fulfilling prophecy due to the mechanisms of stereotype threat. Furthermore, the results indicate that job involvement plays a crucial role in the preference for retirement or to keep on working.

Stereotype threat promises to be very important when it comes to career‐ending measures for older workers. However, the empirical design of the study limits the possibility of drawing direct inferences about the effects of stereotype threat on older workers.

Measures and policies aimed at prolonging the participation of older workers at the labor market should be tailored to the specific needs, perceptions and preferences of older workers.

The concept of stereotype threat has never been connected with the perceptions of older workers. Further, the assessment of the needs, perceptions and preferences related to the career‐ending of older workers has never before been examined in a European study.

This study discusses the frames that were used in the public debate about raising the retirement age in Belgium from 65 to 67 years. The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into the prevailing frames in order to develop counterframes that are less problematizing and can be used to bring more nuance to the debate.

An inductive framing analysis was conducted, using articles from Flemish newspapers and magazines, published in a two-year period (March 2013-March 2015). This sample was complemented by a convenience sample of texts by various stakeholders. The total sample consisted of 182 texts.

The analysis yielded four problematizing frames and six deproblematizing counterframes. They cover both the meaning of work for the individual, and the effect that working longer has on society.

The overview of the frames can be used as a tool to analyze existing communication, and to bring more nuance to future communication by introducing deproblematizing perspectives into the debate regarding the need to work for a longer period of time.

In addition to giving an overview of existing frames, the study also constructed alternatives which can be used to deproblematize the issue of having to work longer.

This study investigates the retirement funding adequacy of black South Africans and how it can be influenced by family structure, health status, financial literacy and the role of the financial planner.

A mixed sampling approach was applied to collect data from 441 black South Africans. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was undertaken and Cronbach's alphas were calculated to confirm the validity and reliability of the measuring instrument. Structural equation modeling was the main statistical procedure applied to test the hypothesised relationships in the research.

Most of the respondents reside in informal urban areas or townships. The findings show a significant positive relationship between financial literacy and the retirement funding adequacy of black individuals. The study found that individuals who are concerned about the wellness of their family, health and finances are more likely to maintain their standard of living at retirement. However, the role of the financial planner, among black South Africans, does not influence their retirement funding adequacy.

Black South Africans are attentive to the wellness of their family, health and finances despite the necessity to support nuclear and extended family members. Financial institutions need to consider this aspect when providing financial advice to individuals who have many financial dependents.

This study contributes to the limited understanding on the factors that influence the retirement funding adequacy of black South Africans and it provides recommendations on improving retirement funding adequacy.

Social norms about the timing of retirement and stereotypes about qualities of younger and older workers are pervasive, but it is unclear how they relate to employers’ ageist preferences. The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of employers’ retirement age norms and age-related stereotypes on their preferences for younger or older workers in three types of employment practices: hiring a new employee; offering training; and offering a permanent contract.

Survey data from 960 Dutch employers from 2017 are analysed to study employers’ preferences for younger or older workers. Effects of organisations’ and managers’ characteristics, retirement age norms and stereotypes are estimated with multinomial logistic regression analyses.

Many employers have a strong preference for younger workers, especially when hiring a new employee, while preferences for older workers are highly uncommon. Higher retirement age norms of employers are related to a lower preference for younger workers in all employment decisions. When employers are more positive about older workers’ soft qualities (such as reliability and social skills), but not about their hard qualities (such as their physical capacity and willingness to learn), they rate older workers relatively more favourable for hiring and offering training, but not for providing a permanent contract.

This is one of the first studies to estimate the effects of retirement age norms and age-related stereotypes on ageist preferences for a diverse set of employment practices.

Taking a social identity approach, the purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which age-based stereotype threat mediates the relationships between older workers’ negative age-based metastereotypes and two negative work attitudes: organizational disidentification and work disengagement.

A two-wave cross-sectional design was adopted to collect data from 423 blue-collar older workers of the Portuguese manufacturing sector. Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediation model.

The analyses show that age-based stereotype threat partially mediates the relationship between negative age-based metastereotypes and negative work attitudes. Moreover, findings suggest that older workers respond to negative age-based metastereotypes through threat reactions, and undesirable work attitudes.

This paper contributes to the literature by showing the importance of negative age-based metastereotypes and age-based stereotype threat in workplace dynamics. It also provides evidence that age threats impair the relationship older workers keep with their organization and their work.

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.