When I retired in 2006, I returned to work almost at once. I was at odds with what was the norm for people retiring. Traditionally, workers transitioned from fulltime work to full and permanent retirement. Since about 2006, retirement is a process, often occurring in a series of steps over several years. Studies using longitudinal and cohort data show that there are multiple paths to retirement, revealing changes over time and between cohorts in how and when people choose to leave the workforce.
One
study showed that the traditional pattern was followed by over 50% of men born
1913 to 1917. Of men born just two decades later, 34% follow this traditional
path. Forty-five percent of men born 1943 to 1947 move to part-time work before
retiring, and 26% of men and 29% of women in this cohort return to work after a
period of retirement. Transitional retirements are increasingly the norm. Early
Baby Boomers, especially women, are more likely than those in earlier cohorts
to move to a bridge job before retiring. Both men and women in this cohort are
also more likely than earlier cohorts to leave the workforce involuntarily
through layoffs.
Full
retirement is defined as reporting currently not working any hours for pay and
describing oneself as retired. Partially retired workers are defined as people who
report that they are retired but are also working fewer than 35 hours per week.
Over
the period 1992 to 1998, about 52% of workers followed a traditional path. The
balance of participants reveal a range of retirement patterns: 12.9% move to
full retirement and then to part-time work; 6.3% go from retirement back to
full-time work; nearly 8% remain partially retired throughout; 13.7% move from
work to partial retirement to full retirement and 7.2% go from work to partial
retirement back to full-time work. Thus about 30% of workers unretire within
six years of retiring.
Overall,
younger workers and men are most likely to unretire. Asked if they would like
to continue doing some paid work after they retire; the vast majority of workers
anticipate their retirement pattern. For this cohort, born 1931 to 1941, only
8% of those who say they had not expected to return to work ended up returning
to work. Workers are more likely to return to part-time work than full time,
especially if they are eligible for full Social Security retirement benefits.
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