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. 2019 Dec;41(10):936-960.
doi: 10.1177/0164027519873537.

Why Singles Prefer to Retire Later

Maria Eismann  1   2 , Kène Henkens  1   2   3 , Matthijs Kalmijn  1   2
Affiliations

Why Singles Prefer to Retire Later

Maria Eismann et al. Res Aging. 2019 Dec.

Abstract

This study goes beyond a purely financial perspective to explain why single older workers prefer to retire later than their partnered counterparts. We aim to show how the work (i.e., its social meaning) and home domain (i.e., spousal influence) contribute to differences in retirement preferences by relationship status. Analyses were based on multiactor data collected in 2015 among older workers in the Netherlands (N = 6,357) and (where applicable) their spouses. Results revealed that the social meaning of work differed by relationship status but not always as expected. In a mediation analysis, we found that the social meaning of work partically explained differences in retirement preferences by relationship status. We also show that single workers preferred to retire later than workers with a "pulling" spouse, earlier than workers with a "pushing" spouse, and at about the same time as workers with a neutral spouse.

Keywords: decision-making; gender; marital status; older worker; retirement.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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