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In the context of population aging, retirement has become a central issue in academic, professional and government discourse. A consensus can be seen to be emerging around the idea of postponing retirement in favor of promoting active aging. From this perspective, the purpose of this study, using work-role attachment theory and met expectations theory, is to focus on the pre-retirement period and aims to better understand how certain individual factors and expectations explain the planned age of retirement.

An online survey was administered in 2015 to employees aged 45 and over working at a Canadian firm in the high-technology sector.

The results show that career commitment, attachment to work and expectations relating to workplace adjustments prior to retirement were positively associated with planned retirement age, whereas expectations relating to professional development showed a negative association with this variable.

This study fits into a line of research focusing on the end-of-career period and sheds light on the decision to retire by looking closely at the impact of employment conditions and human resource management practices on this decision. In a labor market context marked by high numbers of workers aged 55 and older, combined with the increasingly critical need for skilled labor and considering the expectations of workers leading up to their retirement could help to better plan these workers' end-of-career period.

Many studies have examined the characteristics of retirees after retirement. The authors’ study is one of the few that examines the aspirations of workers between the ages of 45 and 55 who are still employed but are beginning to consider their retirement plans, including the decision to continue working longer. Its originality also lies in combining work-role attachment theory and met expectations theory.

Career self‐directedness is a concept that has gained widespread attention in the literature on new careers and managerial thinking about contemporary career development. In a related sense, the topic of employee retirement has become popular in both the academic and managerial literature. However, to date, career self‐directedness has not been studied in relationship with older workers' retirement intentions. The purpose of this study is to test a model of the relationship between career self‐directedness and retirement intentions, mediated by career self‐management behaviors and engagement.

A survey was completed by 271 employees older than 45 working in five organizations. The average age was 53, and 59 percent were female. Participants had been with their current employer for an average of 16 years, and 58 percent of them worked fulltime. The survey included measures of self‐directed career attitude, career self‐management behaviors, engagement and retirement intention.

Results indicate that engagement and career self‐management behaviors fully mediated the relationship between self‐directed career attitude and retirement intention.

This is the first study to address career self‐directedness in relationship with retirement intentions, thereby considering the mediating role of career self‐management behaviors and engagement. As a result, this study contributes to insights in the validity of career self‐directedness as a predictor of career development using a sample of employees different from the main body of studies using samples of employees in their early career stages. Moreover, it sheds further light on the retirement process by including an individual career attitude and intermediating variables viewed as important to understand contemporary organizational behavior.

This study aims to explore the psycho‐social factors (i.e. older worker identity, development opportunities on the job, anticipation of lost social integration upon retirement) related to three types of retirement intention (i.e. full retirement, part‐time retirement, job mobility).

A representative sample of 196 workers aged 50 and over employed in an Italian public‐sector organization completed a research questionnaire. Hypotheses were tested by using structural equation models.

The results showed that: the older‐worker identity was related positively to full retirement intention and negatively to job mobility; development opportunity on the job was negatively related to the full retirement intention; the anticipation of lost social integration upon retirement was positively related to the intention to take part‐time retirement and job mobility.

There are several limitations to the study: the cross‐sectional design; use of single items; the fact that the findings can be generalized only to the organization in which the study was conducted.

Retirement preparation programs should consider the various factors that affect the transition from work to retirement and which may facilitate prior planning by both the individual and the organization.

Expanding previous research studies, the study considers the complexity of preparation for retirement transition by exploring different types of retirement intentions and the psychosocial factors related to them.

Based on the theory of conservation of resources (Hobfoll, 1989), the purpose of this paper is to propose job satisfaction as a mediator between the use of generativity and affective occupational commitment. The authors tested the mediating role of affective occupational commitment on the relationship between job satisfaction and retirement preparation.

A sequential mediation model was tested by the method of indirect effects based on a bootstrap analysis (Preacher and Hayes, 2004) based on 3,000 replications with a 95% confidence interval. The statistical treatments were carried out with the AMOS software V.22. Data were collected for a sample of 340 older workers (bridge and retirees) in Québec, Canada.

Results indicate that generativity was related positively to affective occupational commitment via job satisfaction. Moreover, job satisfaction was also related positively to retirement preparation through affective occupational commitment.

The results can be helpful to guide organizational efforts at retaining older workers, and also recruiting and selecting those who want to return to work after retiring. They provide an insight on the effect of one of the main human resources practices or strategies, that is, programs aiming to attract and retain older workers to stay in the workplace and to encourage retirees to return to work in the form of bridge employment for example.

The study adds to the existing literature by examining a sequential mediation model to understand the relationship between organizational resources, job attitudes and retirement planning. It thus answers the call for more research and a theoretical framework on these critical variables for the retirement decision-making process. The findings can also contribute to the field of knowledge retention and fulfill some gaps in the literature on this topic. Indeed, examining the use of generativity in the study can help researchers and practitioners to better understand the reasons that encourage older workers to continue working and retirees to return to work.

This paper aims to provide an empirical test of theories proposed in the literature stating that turnover and retirement (two kinds of work withdrawal) involve different employee decisions. It also aims to provide a more general theoretical framework understanding turnover and retirement intentions integrating insights from different theories.

Research hypotheses are tested using the Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation (STREAM). This dataset includes information from approximately 15,000 respondents in The Netherlands. Respondents between the age of 45 and 64 were the target group in order to model transitions in the labor market for older workers. This dataset provides a unique opportunity to test turnover and retirement intentions.

First, the results show that personal characteristics such as income, age or health, add more to the explanation of retirement intentions compared to turnover intentions and that work characteristics provide a better explanation of the turnover intention compared to retirement intention. Second, by focusing more closely on retirement intentions, the results show that organizational motivators can increase older workers' labor market participation.

First, it is acknowledged that the study investigates intentions rather than actual behavior. Second, given that the data are cross sectional, we cannot make claims about causality. Finally, some of the measures can be improved in future studies.

This paper aims at integrating different perspectives on two kinds of work withdrawal (turnover and retirement) into one theoretical model.

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 adjustment is the process by which aged workers become accustomed to the changed facts of life in the transition from work to retirement and develop psychological well-being in their post-working life. The purpose of this paper is to explore the psychosocial factors that significantly explain retirement intentions and retirement adjustment, using two separate empirical studies.

Retirement self-efficacy, low work involvement, older worker identity and relative deprivation significantly explained retirement intentions (bridge employment engagement, part-time retirement, late retirement and full retirement) of workers over 60 years (Study 1, n=157). Retirement adjustment indices (retirement satisfaction, feelings of anxiety and depression) were associated with psychosocial factors for retirees (Study 2, n=218).

The findings highlight that retirement self-efficacy and older worker identity positively and significantly explained both full retirement of aged workers and retirement satisfaction of retirees. Relative deprivation negatively significantly explained partial and late retirement intentions and retirement satisfaction of retirees.

The implications of these studies are discussed for understanding retirement planning and counselling practice.

Retirement adjustment conceptualized as a process has important implications for retirement planning, and consequently can influence the project of the life course, as well as career’s decisions.

Social contexts should consider all factors that can negatively affect self-efficacy, work involvement and identity of employees in the mid and late-career stages, and thus contribute to reinforce and strengthen personal and psychosocial resources involved in planning and adaptation to retirement, and to increase the insight into the planning and decisions older workers make to face retirement.

This work had two goals, pursued by two empirical studies with two samples: workers over 60 years, and retirees. The authors contend that the availability of two different sets of data increases the generalizability of the findings.

The aim of this study is to compare the Spanish and Italian early work retirement (EWR) models in a sample comprising individuals from both countries based on the level of voluntariness involved in labour market exit, psychosocial outcomes, perceived consequences, socio‐demographic variables and motivation.

The authors used a cluster analysis approach to carry out a cross‐sectional study based on a total sample of 1,131 early retirees (605 Spaniards and 526 Italians) drawn from different industries.

In the Spanish but not in the Italian case, EWR was predominantly perceived as forced. K‐means cluster analysis identified four groups of early retirees in both countries based on perceived outcomes of EWR. Two of these clusters represent extreme positive and negative assessments of early retirement consequences, while the remaining two reflect intermediate positions.

These results show that the involuntary Spanish EWR model is associated with a significant negative outcomes cluster, whereas voluntary early retirees in Italy are significantly grouped in the positive outcomes cluster. Variables referring to early exit motives, attitudes towards work and post‐working life and psychosocial adjustment are employed to define the clusters.

This study reveals the existence of significant differences in the level of voluntariness between EWR in Spain and its Italian counterpart, in line with the findings obtained by other researchers. The findings support the conclusions of studies that suggest the existence of differences in post‐employment life depending on the level of voluntariness concerned in retirement from the labour market.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between different categories of person–environment (P–E) fit and two types of retirement intentions (i.e. full retirement and bridge employment).

Data were collected from a convenience sample of 357 executives aged 50 and over, employed in French private sector companies. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

Perceptions of value congruence at vocational level and needs and supplies fit at organizational and job levels were positively related to the intention to hold bridge employment after retirement. The fit between older worker’s abilities and job demands was positively related to the two types of retirement intentions.

The complexity of retirement transition is taken into account with the introduction of two types of retirement intentions. P–E fit is shown to be an antecedent of career intentions after retirement.