Retirement is frequently a period of change, when the roles and relationships associated with individuals' previous labour market positions are transformed. It is also a time when personal relationships, including the marital relationship and relationships with friends and family, come under increased scrutiny and may be realigned. Many studies of adjustment to retirement focus primarily on individual motivation; by contrast, this paper seeks to examine the structure of resources within which such decisions are framed. The paper examines the contribution that gender roles and identities make to the overall configuration of resources available to particular individuals. It draws upon qualitative research conducted with older people in four contrasting parts of the United Kingdom, and examines the combination of labour market and non-labour-market activities in which they are involved prior to state retirement age and as they withdraw from paid work. It explores how older people invoke various gendered identities to negotiate change and continuity during this time. The paper argues that gender roles and identities are central to this process and that the reflexive deployment of gender may rank alongside financial resources and social capital in its importance to the achievement of satisfying retirement transitions. Amongst those interviewed, traditional gendered roles predominated, and these sat less comfortably with retirement for men than for women.

In-hospital formula supplementation is common in Hong Kong hospitals and appears to be detrimental to breastfeeding duration. Continued efforts should be made to avoid the provision of infant formula to breastfeeding babies while in the hospital unless medically indicated.

No abstract

With the central players in the United Kingdom policy debate on pensions schemes and funding advocating an extension to the average working life (or, more precisely, a rise in the age of ceasing work), this paper reports the findings of qualitative interviews with men and women at or approaching state pension age that examined what motivated some people to continue to work after that age. By exploring their work histories and orientations to work, the paper shows that people from different social and occupational backgrounds not only conceive work and retirement in different ways but also have contrasting opportunities to continue in occupations after retirement age. Their attitudes and the opportunities they encounter shape the decisions they make at state pension age. Distinctions are drawn between those who articulated an identity as a 'worker ' and those who defined themselves as ' professionals and creatives', and within those categories, between the employed and self-employed. The paper elucidates the tensions between individuals' normative expectations of retirement, their desire for autonomy and flexibility in later life, and the financial and occupational reality of life after state pension age. We argue that understanding the different cultural meanings of work and retirement for different types of worker has implications for the design and implementation of policies to extend working life.

This article examines how industrial restructuring has effected social transformation in terms of the type and meaning of work in the post-closure context of the South Wales Valleys. A conceptual framework is developed which considers a range of experiences within and outside the paid labour market. This theorizes social movement and stasis, and analyses the resources and priorities invoked in pursuing different types of work. Restructuring has weakened occupation's role as a primary means of social cohesion in former coalmining communities, and labour market experiences have become more diffuse and dynamic. It is argued that while paid work remains important to some individuals, this overlooks the experiences of those excluded from or constrained in their economic activity. In order to understand these social solidarities it is necessary to employ less restrictive definitions of work, and examine the meaningful labour embedded in a more interconnected set of relationships and structures.