The changing world of work and retirement

This chapter focuses on the changing world of work and retirement. Statistics show that labor force participation of older adults has changed over the past decades. Crude participation rates mask the dynamics that are taking place in the careers of older adults. Under the umbrella of a gradual detachment from the labor force we find many different transitions and trajectories. The evolving landscape surrounding retirement has changed the nature, as well as the meaning current cohorts attach to retirement. The authors propose an agency-within-structure framework for studying late career transitions. In this model, external structural pressures on individual-level agency come from three main sources: the institutional, organizational, and household context. The importance of these driving forces behind work–retirement transitions is discussed. It is questioned to what extent older adults are able to control their work–retirement transition, and to what extent life course agency is structured along the lines of social disadvantage markers.