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Preparation for retirement is a growth industry. Through the pioneering work of enlightened employers, the national activities of the Pre‐Retirement Association and the 25 local Preparation for Retirement Organisations, there is now widespread recognition that the transition from full‐time work to full‐time leisure involves a fundamental change in the pattern of living. Coleman ranks retirement ninth in a list of stress‐causing events, ranging in order of severity from the death of one's spouse to going on holiday. There is good evidence that preparation for retirement courses results in stress education.

This research aims to look at preferences for retirement, in particular, later retirement, amongst a sample of older employees in the UK in the financial services industry. It seeks to investigate specifically the influence of personal, psychological and psychosocial determinants of preferences for retiring later. Additionally, the study presents a typology of different retirement preferences based on psychological and psychosocial variables.

The data are based on questionnaires from 556 employees of a UK financial services organisation (aged 40‐60) and measures include psychological expectations of retirement (expected adjustment to retirement, attitudes towards leisure and social interaction), psychosocial attitudes (job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, organisational comment and work commitment) and attitudes towards working beyond normal retirement age. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted and one‐way ANOVA was conducted to identify differences between groups.

The data show very negative attitudes towards working later than the normal retirement age and that expectations of adjustment to retirement were the most significant predictor towards retirement preferences, followed by work commitment. Significant differences in retirement attitudes and intentions were found between different groups of employees.

Some of the practical implications of the work suggest that retirement preferences are shaped only to a moderate degree by psychosocial attitudes. In seeking to retain older workers in the workforce for longer employers should encourage employees to develop strong social relationships at work and allow gradual transitions to ultimate retirement.

The paper looked at preferences for retirement, particularly later retirement, and found that, if employers wish to retain the knowledge, skills and expertise of their employees, then it would seem that they need to devise means of allowing people to achieve some of the more desirable aspects of retirement (greater free time, opportunity to pursue hobbies and interests) at the same time as retaining some of the benefits of work (status, professional interest, income etc.). Phased and flexible retirement initiatives therefore seem to be one of the solutions.

Retirement is a complex and important transition in an employee's life. The merits of retirement policies have been discussed from both the individual and the organisational perspectives. Shaw and Grubbs, for example, have emphasised the need for additional research as a guide to managing the retirement process effectively. Clearly, this need is critical in light of the extension of the mandatory retirement age to 70 (Age Discrimination in Employment Act — ADEA) and the rapid increase in the number of age discrimination lawsuits.

Citizens can develop new products in the household sector (HHS), and although HHS innovations are generally valuable to others, they are seldom diffused by the innovator. In order to provide insight for the understanding of this diffusion failure, this article proposes to introduce the vocational and retirement perspective to consider how the innovator's chronological aging affects her diffusion channel selection. Commercial diffusion of HHS innovations allows older adults to continue a work-related identity. And, a satisfying work experience could enhance older adults' reliance on work for self-worth. Therefore, the relationship between the older HHS innovators and their commercial diffusion as well as the moderating effect of their person–organization (P–O) fit on this relationship was examined.

This study referred to the standard procedure and utilized a Japanese consumer panel to identify HHS innovators. The criterion of old age was set to 60+ years old. The hypotheses were tested with ordinary least squares regression analysis. The robustness of our findings was checked by analyzing two restricted samples.

In Japan, older adults are more likely to diffuse their HHS innovators commercially than to peers. This relationship is amplified when the older adults also perceived a P-O fit in their employer firm.

This paper adds to the evidence that older adults can be an important source of innovation. It – for the first time – points out that the vocational and retirement perspective can help researchers consider why a particular diffusion channel is selected and thereby provide insight for understanding when the diffusion failure of HHS innovation is alleviated. The moderating effect of the P–O fit originally suggests the “interdependent life spheres”, that is, older adults' work experience may affect their post-retirement life and their activity in the household sector.

The ‘baby‐boom’ generation has emerged as a significant group in debates focusing on population change. The demographic context concerns the increase in the birth rate across industrialised countries from the mid‐1940s through to the mid‐1960s. From a sociological perspective, boomers have been viewed as a group with distinctive experiences that set them apart from previous generations. In the UK context, however, there have been relatively few detailed studies of the characteristics of the boomer generation and, in particular, that of first‐wave boomers (born between 1945 and 1954) now entering retirement. This article draws on a research project exploring changes in consumption and identity affecting this cohort. The paper reviews some of the key social and demographic changes affecting this group, highlighting a mixture of continuities and discontinuities over previous cohorts. The article concludes with an assessment of the value of sociological research for furthering understanding of the baby‐boomer generation.

This paper seeks to identify the meanings associated with retirement for a longitudinal sample of women immediately prior to and following their official retirement. Contextual factors which shape those meanings are also described.

In‐depth interviews, based on a series of interview guides were conducted with a sample of 14 women in their pre‐ and post‐retirement years. The data were coded using a grounded theory approach and typology classification schemes.

Retirement was alternately conceptualized as a new period of life affording freedoms and growth, as a natural final phase, as a frightening period due to losses, and/or as a pinnacle of accomplishment or relief. The contextual influences of family, friends, and unique attributes of one's profession (e.g. having jobs with transferrable skills and/or having physically demanding jobs) help create meanings. Finally, meanings were found to shift over time in concert with changing contexts.

Women have a wide range of responses to their own retirement. The stereotype that they will easily replace the work role with family and/or household roles does not hold for all.

By truly understanding the particulars of each employee's situation, managers can assist employees in the transition into retirement such that it is a smooth one. Managers might also be able to more immediately identify employees, who would be willing to return to the organization in a consulting or short‐term capacity following retirement.

The longitudinal data offers a unique vantage point, such that meanings can be traced over time in a way that has not yet been documented in empirical work.

How people spend their time is an indicator of how they live their lives, with time use over the life course conditioned both by age and by participation in age-graded institutions. This chapter uses nationally representative data from the pooled 2008–2020 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to evaluate how time use in 12 activity categories varies by age, gender, and disability status among 137,266 respondents aged 15 and older. By doing so, we quantify the “disability gap” in time use between men and women with and without disabilities, identifying at what age and by how much people with disabilities experience time differentials in activities of daily living (ADLs), instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and other indicators of social participation. Results indicate that – at many ages – patterns of time use for people with disabilities deviate from those of people without disabilities, with more pronounced differences in midlife. Further, the magnitude of women's disability gaps equals or exceeds men's for sleeping, and nearly all ADLs and IADLs, indicating that disability gaps are also gendered.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the conceptual framework about human resources downsizing and restructuring and how organizations of the public sector can do that effectively and efficiently. These facts drive to the conclusion that the implementation of early retirement incentives requires the most elaborate planning and execution to be effective, predictable and safe in the long term.

This paper adopts an analytical, descriptive methodology approach to describe the basic features of the data by using the descriptive research design. Data have been collected through different sources, which include secondary data, to introduce the theoretical literature of the subject as books, journals, articles, published working papers and referred previous studies related to the same subject.

Downsizing process is a deliberate administrative process that includes, but is not limited to, workforce reduction and is primarily aimed at achieving efficiency in public organizations. The definition of workforce downsizing may be narrowed to reducing the number of workers, or more likely to refer to general efforts to restructuring human resources in public organizations, Early Retirement Incentive Programs (ERIP) represents a viable alternative for organizations seeking to reduce staff. For the ERIP to be successful, the program coordinator must understand the business objectives and goals that the organization is trying to obtain.

Human resources strategies concerning downsizing public administration workforce should be more appropriate to those who leave the organization and those who stay at work, reducing the negative psychological, administrative and economical effects. This could be achieved through a strategy called early retirement incentive programs.

This article aims to explain how a transnational “retirement industry” in Southeast Asia has emerged recently as a result of interplays between various national and transnational forces, particularly in the domain of elderly care. “Retirement industry” refers to business operations related to the relocation of foreign retirees, primarily Japanese pensioners, who seek affordable social care and alternative retirement life.

This paper is based on extensive documentary studies and multi‐sited ethnographic research from 2004 to date. In‐depth interviews with retirees and relevant agencies were carried out in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.

This article delineates how demographic and economic changes in Japan create demand for the transnational retirement industry, and how Southeast Asian countries actively promote the industry as a national development strategy. As such the boundaries between nation‐state and between the market and the state are simultaneously crossed. The industry opens new transnational routes and spaces and thus further complicates the transnationalization of elderly care in Asia.

Current research on social welfare remains dominated by methodological nationalism, and this article calls attention to the transnational dimension in understanding recent changes in social care. By engaging the predominant paradigm of “care diamond”, the article shows that how boundaries shift between various care providers within nation states is inextricably related to how borders are crossed between nation states.

This paper assesses how retirement – defined as permanent labor force non-participation in a man’s mature years – affects psychological welfare. The raw correlation between retirement and well-being is negative. But this does not imply causation. In particular, people with idiosyncratically low well-being, or people facing transitory shocks which adversely affect well-being might disproportionately select into retirement. Discontinuous retirement incentives in the Social Security System, and changes in laws affecting mandatory retirement and Social Security benefits allows the exogenous effect of retirement on happiness to be estimated. The paper finds that the direct effect of retirement on well-being is positive once the fact that retirement and well-being are simultaneously determined is accounted for.