Examining bridge employment from a self-employment perspective—evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

This study examines bridge employment decision-making from a self-employment perspective using 3 prominent retirement theories, the life course perspective, continuity theory and role theory. Focusing on self-employment extends the current theoretical understanding of bridge employment and offers interesting implications for retirement policy-making. Specifically, using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (n = 2,080), we conducted multinomial regression analysis to examine who were more/less likely to fully retire, enter bridge employment in the wage-and-salary form, or enter bridge employment in the self-employment form. Furthermore, we examined the role of pre-retirement self-employment status, to provide us with more information on the very much understudied retirement process of entrepreneurs and self-employed workforce. Our findings indicated that self-employment can be considered as an independent form of bridge employment, apart from bridge employment in wage-and-salary jobs. Furthermore, the decision to enter different forms of bridge employment, including self-employment, may stem from a variety of antecedents. Practical implications of this study are also discussed.