Deciding together? Spousal influence on the retirement process

Over the last decades, population aging has sparked growing societal and scientific interest in retirement-related topics. In addition to this, the rising number of older women in the labour market have attracted attention to the specific circumstances of retiring women as well as couples. In the scientific literature, retirement is increasingly seen as a decision that is taken by a couple, rather than by an individual. This dissertation builds on and extends an emerging line of research on retirement in a couple context by studying spousal influence on workers’ retirement process. The four empirical studies show the added value of viewing the spouse as an actor in workers’ transition to retirement.