ABSTRACT
Retirement is a common feature of the socially constructed life course in industrialized countries. Though decline in older workers labor force participation rates appears to have halted in the United States, retirement today arrives earlier than in the past. It also occurs in very heterogeneous ways. This chapter discusses both the institutional and individual approaches to an exit "pathway" linking events across the life course to understand the patterns of earlier work exit and growing diversity arising from social structure and individual trajectories. Retirement has become an earlier and more universal event in the age-based life course in that a larger proportion of older persons are out of the labor force at earlier ages than in the past. There is broad agreement on the factors affecting individual retirement timing in any one period. Wealth—including pensions, Social Security, and individual saving—and health are the primary factors.
