The Impact of Midlife Educational, Work, Health, and Family Experiences on Men's Early Retirement

Abstract

Given the destandardization of life courses, information on distal life experiences might become even more important toward understanding retirement in the future.

Understanding Retirement Processes: The Role of Life Histories

“…Similarly, by analyzing more recent data of the SHARELIFE 3 survey, Kovalenko and Mortelmans (2013) have shown that individuals following a so-called 'stepping stone' career trajectory -characterized by a main job of a prolonged duration that is held until retirementretire earlier than those individuals who had a 'hypertransitional' career trajectory. Other studies suggest as well that mobility is associated with later retirement among men, by showing that mid-life employer changes are associated with weaker intentions to retire early (Damman et al 2011), and that a shorter job tenure decreases retirement risks (Hayward et al 1998).…”

“…In studies on life histories and retirement, the financial argument is the most central argument that has been used to theoretically link earlier experiences to later outcomes: Earlier life experiences will affect preretirement financial opportunities and constraints and consequently retirement decisions (e.g., Hank 2004, Hayward et al 1998, Szinovacz and DeViney 2000, Damman et al 2011). …”

“…Consequently, when reasoning via the work opportunity structure, upwardly mobile individuals can be hypothesized to retire relatively late. This complexity of potentially offsetting ways in which earlier life experiences could be related to retirement transitions has only recently been made more explicit in the retirement literature (e.g., Damman et al 2011, Raymo et al 2011, Hank 2004.…”

“…With respect to work careers these studies have, for instance, investigated the role of diverse career pathways (Han and Moen 1999, Pienta et al 1994, Kovalenko and Mortelmans 2013, exposure to certain types of jobs over the career (Elder and Pavalko 1993, Hayward et al 1998, Raymo et al 2011, and diverse indicators of employment continuity and career mobility (Damman et al 2011, Finch 2014, Raymo et al 2010, Singh and Verma 2003, Henretta et al 1993) for explaining late-career labor market behaviors. Even though insights are still rather fragmented -given that studied earlier life experiences and country contexts differ much between studies -a general sketch of some findings could be provided.…”

“…Among men who live with a partner, late-career labor market behaviors also do not seem to differ much between those who did and those who did not experience a divorce earlier in life (Finch 2014, Szinovacz andDeViney 2000). With respect to the timing of a divorce, research suggests that especially experiencing a divorce later in mid-life is associated with weaker intentions to retire early among both men and women (Damman et al 2011, Damman et al 2014). Also here it should be noted that the impact of divorce experiences might differ between country-contexts.…”