ABSTRACT
‘Retirement’ is a multifaceted term that has been conceptualized in differ- ent ways in previous research. In this study, I will operationalize retirement as exit from employment or ‘long-term labor force exit’ (Burkhauser et al. 2001) because I am interested in the implications of the associated decline in earnings for retiring workers and their families. Exit from employment is one common way of defining retirement (see, for example, Burkhauser et al. 2001; Radl 2010), but many authors use other definitions. The most frequent alternatives are individuals’ self-perceptions and self-reports (Bardasi and Jenkins 2002; Drobnic 2002) and definitions based on pension entrance (Fasang 2008). A possible criticism of equating retirement with exit from work is that this approach excludes a substantial number of (predominantly female) individuals (e.g., homemakers) who are not employed in their later years (Fasang 2008). To alleviate such concerns, I will briefly examine the economic situation of individuals without substantial late-life employment at the beginning of the next chapter.
