Retirement Transitions in the United States: Patterns and Pathways From Full-Time Work

Productive Aging Lifestyles: A Latent Class Analysis of Work and Volunteer Patterns over the Retirement Transition

“…Further, work and retirement look very different today than in the 1980s and 1990s when some of the foundational work by Caro and colleagues was first being carried out and retirement was largely characterized by complete departure from the labor force (e.g., The Commonwealth Fund Survey in 1991 - Caro & Bass, 1997). A growing proportion of older adults today work into their late 60s and beyond, and the lines between work and retirement have become increasingly blurred with part-time work often occurring prior to complete labor force withdrawal (Carr et al, 2021 Moreover, people's engagement with PAs neither occur in isolation of one another, nor are they static over time. Instead, people's PA lifestyles are bothat least partiallya function of each other and evolve over a long period of time as people move into, through, and beyond retirement.…”

“…Over the last few decades, older adults’ work lives have lengthened, and a growing amount of research has explored the implications of PA in the context of extended working lives, with part-time employment often being a key feature of post-retirement life (Carr et al, 2021). This work, largely based on short-term longitudinal or cross-sectional PA patterns, showed individual health and wellbeing benefits associated with PA, especially among those engaged in both work and volunteering (Burr et al, 2021; CNCS, 2007a).…”

“…This work, largely based on short-term longitudinal or cross-sectional PA patterns, showed individual health and wellbeing benefits associated with PA, especially among those engaged in both work and volunteering (Burr et al, 2021; CNCS, 2007a). We (the authors of this paper) have made several contributions to this research (Carr et al, 2018a, 2018b, 2020, 2021; Carr & Kail, 2013; Kail & Carr, 2017, 2020; Matz-Costa et al, 2016) and argue that PA scholarship has provided foundational evidence of the benefits of working and volunteering for the health of older Americans: those who participate in work and volunteering derive physical, cognitive, psychological, and social benefits from doing so.…”

“…Further, work and retirement look very different today than in the 1980s and 1990s when some of the foundational work by Caro and colleagues was first being carried out and retirement was largely characterized by complete departure from the labor force (e.g., The Commonwealth Fund Survey in 1991 – Caro & Bass, 1997). A growing proportion of older adults today work into their late 60s and beyond, and the lines between work and retirement have become increasingly blurred with part-time work often occurring prior to complete labor force withdrawal (Carr et al, 2021, 2022)…”

“…Additionally, much of the current research on work and retirement only differentiates between working full time and a crisp transition to complete retirement. Although this approach is suited for some research questions, crisp transitions are no longer the modal pathway to retirement; there is considerable heterogeneity regarding how workers exit full time employment (Carr et al, 2021, 2022).…”