The Influences on Bridge Employment Decisions

Population aging, and changes in labor force participation among older adults, will have tremendous impacts on the aging workforce. Thus it is imperative that the factors that influence whether older workers will continue in their career employment, engage in bridge employment, or fully retire, should be understood better. This paper aims to focus on these issues. In the present study longitudinal data for 2,869 older workers from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data set in the USA were used to examine the influence of demographic (e.g., income), nonwork related factors (e.g., marital satisfaction), and work related factors (e.g., job involvement) on late-life employment decisions over a ten year period from 1992 to 2002. The results indicate a wide variety of factors impact employment decisions later in life. Specifically, it was found that work related factors of job involvement and schedule flexibility, as well as the nonwork related factors of certainty of retirement plans, attitudes toward retirement, and job seeking self-efficacy all distinguished the various employment statuses (e.g., completely retired, partly retirement, and not retired at all) of older workers over a ten year period.