Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The biology of ageing
- 3 Fostering resilience, promoting health and preventing disease in older adults
- 4 Ageing and health
- 5 Social care and older people
- 6 Cognitive processes and ageing
- 7 The psychology of atypical ageing
- 8 Sociological perspectives on ageing
- 9 Retirement
- 10 Sexuality and ageing
- 11 Policies on ageing
- 12 Cross-cultural differences in ageing
- 13 Technology and ageing
- 14 Literary portrayals of ageing
- 15 Palliative care for older adults
- 16 Conclusions
- Index
- References
9 - Retirement
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The biology of ageing
- 3 Fostering resilience, promoting health and preventing disease in older adults
- 4 Ageing and health
- 5 Social care and older people
- 6 Cognitive processes and ageing
- 7 The psychology of atypical ageing
- 8 Sociological perspectives on ageing
- 9 Retirement
- 10 Sexuality and ageing
- 11 Policies on ageing
- 12 Cross-cultural differences in ageing
- 13 Technology and ageing
- 14 Literary portrayals of ageing
- 15 Palliative care for older adults
- 16 Conclusions
- Index
- References
Summary
OVERVIEW
This chapter examines key facets of retirement, including the institutionalization of retirement, definitions of retirement, the scope of retirement, the age of retirement, the length of retirement, retirement theories, reinventing the concept of retirement, health and wealth, the timing of retirement, and families and retirement.
Introduction
Retirement, as a social institution, emerged in modern industrialized societies at the beginning of the twentieth century. Scholarship into retirement began in earnest in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but because of its rapid evolution, there is always some doubt about the relevance of research conducted in earlier times to retirement today. Just as social scientists think they have a clear picture of the transition from work to retirement, its causes and consequences, the picture shifts, presenting different economic conditions, policies and individual preferences that require new explanations. For example, while retirement may have been initially developed as a reward for loyal older workers to encourage lifelong attachment to employers, in a recession, retirement may be used as a mechanism to trim older workers from the labour force as quickly as possible. These variations on retirement are founded on the underlying idea that retirement was designed to move the older worker out of the labour force in a systematic manner without causing undue financial upset, while solving the societal problem of what to do with an ageing labour force.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Introduction to Gerontology , pp. 251 - 282Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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