ABSTRACT
The workforce is aging. This demographic change in the workforce has greatly shaped and facilitated research on older workers’ career decisions such as retirement and working after retirement. Today, retirement is defined as a process that occurs over a period of time, starting with planning and decision-making a long time before the actual exit from the workforce, and not completed until one adjusts to retirement (Beehr, 1986; Wang & Shi, 2014). On the one hand, due to the increase in life expectancy, people do not view retirement as approaching the end of life anymore. Rather, many people have started to view retirement as a new life stage when they can pursue goals that cannot be reached while working (Shultz & Wang, 2011; Wang & Shultz, 2010; Wang, Henkens, & van Solinge, 2011). This also provides the opportunity for working longer and working in a different industry to those who desire to do so (Wang, Zhan, Liu, & Shultz, 2008). On the other hand, the increased life expectancy combined with the rising healthcare costs also brings financial challenges to individuals who expect a longer period of retirement (Adams & Rau, 2011). Some older workers may face the necessity of working longer to secure the financial aspects of their retirement life. From the employers’ perspective, because of the aging trend, some employers may experience labor force shortages. They could potentially benefit from hiring older workers given older workers’ experiences and reliability (Ng & Feldman, 2008, 2013). Therefore, the recent years have witnessed an increase in the labor force participation exhibited by older workers as they leave their career jobs and move toward complete work withdrawal, namely bridge employment (Shultz, 2003; Wang & Shi, 2014).
