Expectations regarding the work hours of older workers have changed over time. This article examines Canadian workers in their pre-retirement years to identify patterns in work hour preferences by gender-and whether work hour mismatch predicts late-stage workforce transitions. Findings from a national sample of Canadian workers show that slightly over half of all respondents were content with the number of hours they worked, but that 36% of the sample expressed a preference to work fewer hours and more than 8% expressed a preference to work more hours. Among men and women there were remarkable similarities in the factors that predicted a mismatch between respondents' preferred and actual hours worked. While highlighting heterogeneity in the work hour preferences of Canadian workers in the years leading up to traditional retirement age, findings illustrate how mismatches between workers' preferred and actual work hours predict later career workforce transitions. Findings also emphasize the importance of good relations with coworkers and supervisor support as factors that can enhance preferences to continue working at later career stages. Our findings also support claims that employers ought to be encouraged to focus on later career transitions and to find opportunities to enhance the fit between the number of hours required to meet work demands with individuals' capabilities and interests.

It is widely acknowledged that informal social ties provide older persons with many resources that serve to protect and improve their levels of health and well-being. Most studies on this topic, however, ignore the month or season of the year during which data was accumulated. This study proposes two hypotheses to explain seniors' social network resources over the calendar year: the "fluctuation hypothesis", which proposes that seasonal variation, in the form of weather fluctuations, institutional calendars, and holidays, might influence the social lives and resources of older persons, and the "network stability" perspective, which, informed by tenets of convoy theory and socioemotional selectivity theory, emphasizes the increasing importance of close network ties as individuals age and the stability of these ties. Using two waves (2005-2006 and 2010-2011) of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling older adults aged 57-85 in the United States, we examine a diverse set of nine social connectedness outcomes. Results, overall, support the network stability perspective, as the only social connectedness outcome found to significantly vary by month of year was average closeness with network members. We conclude by suggesting some methodological considerations for survey research and by noting how these findings complement the growing literature on inter-year fluctuation in social networks and social support. Changes in older adults' networks, while frequently observable over the course of years, do not seem to be seasonally patterned.

Close social networks provide older persons with resources, including social support, that maintain their well-being. While scholarship shows how networks change over time, a dearth of research investigates changing social contexts as causes of network dynamics. Using the first two waves of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project survey ( N = 1,776), this study shows how rising neighborhood-level concentrated disadvantage through the Great Recession of 2007–2009 was associated with smaller close networks, largely due to fewer new close ties gained, among older Americans. Worsening neighborhood circumstances pose obstacles to older residents’ acquisition of new close ties, including heightened fear, lower generalized trust, stress and depression, and declines in local institutions that attract both residents and nonresidents.

Neighborhoods' structural conditions are consequential for their social circumstances and residents' well-being. Neighborhood effects might be accentuated among older residents because their daily activities and social lives are more confined to their immediate communities. This study examines how changing neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage affects older residents' depression and stress, as well as perceptions of neighborhood context. This study employed waves 2 (2010-2011) and 3 (2015-2016) of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project survey (N = 2357) and fixed-effects linear regression models to study these relationships. While rising neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with more depression and stress, it was negatively associated with overall neighborhood social capital and neighborhood social cohesion, and was only associated with lower perceptions of neighborhood safety among respondents who relocated to new neighborhoods. Beyond cross-sectional associations, changing neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated