Conceptualizing retirement as a dynamic, age-dependent process, we propose to investigate the impact of mid-and late-career events on retirement, disability and death. Particular attention will be devoted to the influence of the timing, direction, and magnitude of earlier career events on the relative frequency of those transitions that generally mark the end of the labor force career. This focus allows us to empirically evaluate the bonds between major career events and speaks directly to a theoretical concern with career-line vulnerability to aging and the ramifications for the retirement process of career deterioration or advancement. To better understand career-line vulnerability to aging, itself, the analysis of the retirement process will be preceded by an inquiry of the determinants of career mobility. We will attend explicitly to those factors that influence the timing, direction, and magnitude of occupational mobility. Timing refers to the age at which mobility occurs, and the direction and magnitude of mobility refer of changes in the attractiveness of work, both positive and negative, associated with occupational changes. The consideration of all three factors is especially important to achieve an accurate portrayal of the age-vulnerability of older men's careers. The analysis is a cohort-based prospective study based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men. This is a nationally representative sample of men aged 45-59 years in 1966 who are followed for a 17-year period. The proposed study is unique in that it will more fully exploit the longitudinal qualities of the data than prior studies. Specifically, based on a subsample of men who are in the labor force at some point during the observation period, biographical histories of labor force behavior and time-dependent explanatory covariates will be developed, and a hazards model approach will be used to formally model the dynamic processes of career mobility and retirement. Although prior studies have recognized the over-arching importance of considering the consequences of mobility patterns for the retirement process, this study is the first to explicitly attend to these issues. Such as approach promises to provide new insights into the role of the career dynamics for late-life labor force behavior, and it will serve to integrate the retirement process with the larger career cycle. Finally, the results of this study will be pertinent to critical policy concerns of inequities of access to retirement, pension policy, the retraining of older workers, and pre-retirement planning.
| Hayward, M D; Friedman, S; Chen, H (1998) Career trajectories and older men's retirement. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 53:S91-103 |
| Hayward, M D; Friedman, S; Chen, H (1996) Race inequities in men's retirement. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 51:S1-10 |
| Hayward, M D; Crimmins, E M; Wray, L A (1994) The relationship between retirement life cycle changes and older men's labor force participation rates. J Gerontol 49:S219-30 |
