One of the solutions that could be used to resource the needs of ageing populations is the encouragement of individuals to extend working lives beyond retirement, often referred to as ‘bridge employment’. Although previous studies provide important insights into individual determinants of bridge employment, there is scant research on the extent to which differences across countries and between genders exist and how these might be explained by economic and societal differences in the pension context. The determinants of participation in bridge employment are investigated among male and female retirees in 16 European countries. Multilevel models are estimated based on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe project. It was found that where there is high expenditure on pensions there is a lower likelihood of retirees participating in bridge jobs, while strong norms that support working past retirement are positively associated with bridge employment.
BeehrTABennettMM (2015) Working after retirement: features of bridge employment and research directions. Work, Aging and Retirement1: 112–28.
3.
BongaartsJ (2004) Population aging and the rising cost of public pensions. Population and Development Review30: 1–23.
4.
Börsch-SupanABrandtMHunklerCKneipTKorbmacherJMalterFSchaanBStuckSZuberS; SHARE Central Coordination Team (2013) Data resource profile: the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). International Journal of Epidemiology42: 992–1001.
5.
BowmanJR (2014) Capitalisms Compared: Welfare, Work and Business. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE/CQ Press.
6.
BrunelloGLangellaM (2012) Bridge jobs in Europe. IZA Discussion Papers Series, October. Bonn: The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), 1–39.
7.
BryanMLJenkinsSP (2013) Regression Analysis of Country Effects Using Multilevel Data: A Cautionary Tale. Colchester: Institute for Social and Economic Research.
8.
CahillKEGiandreaMDQuinnJF (2006) Retirement patterns from career employment. The Gerontologist46: 514–23.
9.
CarrDCKailBL (2012) The influence of unpaid work on the transition out of full-time paid work. The Gerontologist53: 92–101.
10.
DammanM (2014) From Employee to Retiree: Life Histories and Retirement in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 170.
11.
DammanMHenkensKKalmijnM (2015) Missing work after retirement: the role of life histories in the retirement adjustment process. The Gerontologist55: 802–13.
12.
DingemansEHenkensK (2014) Involuntary retirement, bridge employment, and satisfaction with life: a longitudinal investigation. Journal of Organizational Behavior35: 575–91.
13.
DingemansEHenkensKVan SolingeH (2015) Access to bridge employment: who finds and who does not find work after retirement?The Gerontologist. Epub ahead of print 11February. DOI: 10.1093/geront/gnu182.
14.
EaglyAHWoodWDiekmanAB (2000) Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: a current appraisal. In: EckesTTrautnerHM (eds) The Developmental Social Psychology of Gender. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 123–74.
15.
EngelhardtH (2012) Late careers in Europe: effects of individual and institutional factors. European Sociological Review28: 550–64.
16.
Eurofound (2011) Part-Time Work in Europe. European Company Survey 2009. Dublin: Eurofound.
17.
FeldmanDC (1994) The decision to retire early: a review and conceptualization. Academy of Management Review19: 285–311.
18.
FeldmanDCBeehrTA (2011) A three-phase model of retirement decision making. American Psychologist66: 193–203.
19.
GiddensA (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley, CA; Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
20.
GobeskiKTBeehrTA (2009) How retirees work: predictors of different types of bridge employment. Journal of Organizational Behavior30: 401–25.
21.
GuoGZhaoH (2000) Multilevel modeling for binary data. Annual Review of Sociology26: 441–62.
22.
HankKErlinghagenM (2011) Perceptions of job security in Europe’s ageing workforce. Social Indicator Research103: 427–42.
23.
HeckmanJJ (1979) Sample selection bias as a specification error. Econometrica47: 153–61.
24.
HochfellnerD (2013) Labor Market Participation of Older Workers: Employment beyond Retirement and Old Age Poverty. Bamberg: Fakultät Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Universität Bamberg.
25.
JonesDAMcIntoshBR (2010) Organizational and occupational commitment in relation to bridge employment and retirement intentions. Journal of Vocational Behavior77: 290–303.
26.
KalmijnMKraaykampG (2007) Social stratification and attitudes: a comparative analysis of the effects of class and education in Europe. The British Journal of Sociology58: 547–76.
27.
KantarciT (2012) Essays on Partial Retirement. Tilburg: Center Dissertation Series.
28.
KimHDe VaneySA (2005) The selection of partial or full retirement by older workers. Journal of Family and Economic Issues26: 371–94.
29.
KimSFeldmanDC (2000) Working in retirement: the antecedents of bridge employment and its consequences for quality of life in retirement. Academy of Management Journal43: 1195–210.
30.
KompKVan TilburgTBroese van GroenouM (2010) Paid work between age 60 and 70 years in Europe: a matter of socio-economic status?International Journal of Ageing and Later Life5: 45–75.
31.
KonradAMRitchieJELiebPCorrigallE (2000) Sex differences and similarities in job attribute preferences: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin126: 593–641.
32.
LarsenMPedersenPJ (2013) To work, to retire – or both? Labor market activity after 60. IZA Journal of European Labor Studies2: 21–41.
33.
LiefbroerACBillariFC (2010) Bringing norms back in: a theoretical and empirical discussion of their importance for understanding demographic behaviour. Population, Space and Place16: 287–305.
34.
LindbeckANyberSWeibullJW (1999) Social norms and economic incentives in the welfare state. The Quarterly Journal of Economics114: 1–35.
35.
MaestasN (2010) Back to work. Expectations and realizations of work after retirement. The Journal of Human Resources45: 718–48.
36.
MaestasNZissimopoulosJM (2010) How longer work lives ease the crunch of population aging. Journal of Economic Perspectives24: 139–60.
37.
Oude MuldersJVan DalenHPHenkensKSchippersJ (2014) How likely are employers to rehire older workers after mandatory retirement? A vignette study among managers. De Economist162: 415–31.
38.
ParryEBown WilsonD (2014) Career transitions at retirement in the United Kingdom: bridge employment or continued progression? In: AlcoverC-MTopaGParryEFraccarioliFDepoloM (eds) Bridge Employment: A Research Handbook. New York: Routledge, 138–53.
39.
PientaAMHaywardMD (2002) Who expects to continue working after age 62? The retirement plans of couples. Journal of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences57: 199–208.
40.
PleauRL (2010) Gender differences in postretirement employment. Research on Aging32: 267–303.
41.
RadlJ (2013) Labour market exit and social stratification in Western Europe: the effects of social class and gender on the timing of retirement. European Sociological Review29: 654–68.
42.
RaymoJMSweeneyMM (2006) Work-family conflict and retirement preferences. Journal of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences61: S161–9.
43.
SchalkRDesmetteD (2015) Intentions to continue working and its predictors. In: BalMPKooijDRousseauDM (eds) Aging Workers and the Employee-Employer Relationship. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 203–20.
44.
SetterstenRA (2003) Propositions and controversies in life-course scholarship. In: SetterstenRA (ed.) Invitation to the Life Course: Toward New Understanding of Later Life. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Co., 15–48.
45.
SetterstenRAHagestadGO (1996) What’s the latest? II. Cultural age deadlines for educational and work transitions. The Gerontologist36: 602–13.
46.
ShultzKS (2003) Bridge employment: work after retirement. In: AdamsGABeehrTA (eds) Retirement: Reasons, Processes, and Results. New York: Springer, 215–41.
47.
SzinovaczMEDeVineyS (2000) Marital characteristics and retirement decisions. Research on Aging22: 470–98.
48.
TNS Opinion & Social (2012) Active ageing. Special Eurobarometer 378. Luxembourg: European Commission.
49.
UNESCO (2006) ISCED 1997. International Standard Classification of Education. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 1–49.
50.
Van DalenHPHenkensK (2002) Early retirement reform: can it and will it work?Ageing & Society22: 209–31.
51.
Van DalenHPHenkensKSchippersJ (2010) Productivity of older workers: perceptions of employers and employees. Population and Development Review36: 309–30.
52.
WangM (2007) Profiling retirees in the retirement transition and adjustment process: examining the longitudinal change patterns of retirees’ psychological well-being. Journal of Applied Psychology92: 455–74.
53.
WangMZhanYLiuSShultzKS (2008) Antecedents of bridge employment: a longitudinal investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology93: 818–30.
54.
ZhanYWangM (2015) Bridge employment: conceptualizations and new directions for future research. In: BalMPKooijDRousseauDM (eds) Aging Workers and the Employee-Employer Relationship. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 203–20.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
