The Decision to Retire: A Career Perspective

A career perspective inspired by symbolic interaction theory suggests that anticipatory planning, work and family role characteristics, and gender may influence the decision to retire. Methods. Hypotheses are tested from a longitudinal data set collected in 1992 from married, full-time workers from fifty-eight to sixty-four years of age in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina, metropolitan area, and from a follow-up survey in 1994 that distinguishes married workers who have retired from those who have continued to work. Results. Findings include that (1) married workers engaged in retirement planning were more likely to retire early; (2) those who were more satisfied with their work were less likely to have retired by 1994; (3) having a working spouse decreased and marital satisfaction increased the likelihood of retirement; and (4) women were more likely to retire in the two-year interval than men, and there were only a few differences between men and women in the factors that influenced retirement. Conclusions.The findings confirm that retirement entails much more than just a decision to stop working full-time. Retirement highlights the convergence of past and present temporal dimensions, as well as objective and subjective characteristics of work, family, and gender roles.