A life course perspective on retirement, gender, and well-being

“Retirement can have positive or negative effects on health, depending in part on whether it is forced or voluntary, and the subjective meaning of retirement for the person (Moen, 1996).”

“Based on the life course perspective, childrearing roles in earlier life may affect retirement timing in later life (Moen, 1996).”

“Factors such as desirability, the degree of control, intrinsic values, predictability and irreversibility can contribute to the stressfulness of a life event [11,12].”

“Future investigations should be directed toward more comprehensive modeling of the complex pathways to retirement in the setting of late-career job loss, building on earlier research efforts (Flippen & Tienda, 2000; Moen, 1996; Mutchler, Burr, Pienta, & Massagli, 1997; Szinovacz & Davey, 2004).”

“Retirement has historically been perceived as a time of financial and physical decline (Phillipson 1990; Townsend 1981) linked with the adverse effects of a loss of financial stability, sense of purpose and social activity derived from employment (Moen 1996).”

“General well-being refers to people’s overall state of being happy and healthy in life (Moen, 1996), and the present study examines the effect of job crafting (e.g., increasing social and structural job resources and seeking challenges; Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2012) on general well-being in terms of…”

“Given the important role of work, individuals retiring from the workforce may face lower levels of psychological health due to the decrease in size of their social networks (Moen, 1996).”

“The life-course approach proposes that the impact of retirement and other life transitions may depend on the proximity to the transition.(30,31) Thus, we distinguished the 3 periods of the retirement process as follows: the preretirement period (years 4 to 2), the transition period (years 1 to 1), and the postretireme…”

“Moen (54) has shown that health determines retirement.”

“At the same time, information and communication technologies have made work more portable and ubiquitous that increases employees flexibility to organise work (Moen, 1996).”

“A central focus of my research and writing is gender: the ways that gender shapes the choices and life chances of men and women as they move through roles and relationships (Han & Moen, 1999a; Han & Moen, 1999b; Moen, 1995, 1996, 2000; Moen & Han, 1999; Quick & Moen, 1998).”

“Other demographic characteristics such as number of years retired, age and gender, have also been proposed as contributors to well-being in retirement (Atchley, 1976; Moen, 1996).”

“This is because one’s departure from the workforce is a critical life event that carries with it multiple and complex ramifications that could color psychological perceptions of past and future events (Kim & Moen, 2002; Moen, 1996).”

“In sharp contrast with their forebears in the 19th century for whom aging represented an increasingly difficult struggle to maintain their capacity to work, most men who reached the age of 65 in the 1970s and 1980s experienced a major life transition when they moved from full-time paid work to retirement (Moen, 1996).”

“16,43,44 A comprehensive analysis must also take into account the way that social context variables mediate women’s experience of multiple roles.”

“First is the importance of the gendered life course (Moen 1996).”

“The effect of gender in retirement decisions has largely been neglected in previous studies (Beehr & Bennett, 2007; Moen, 1996; Talaga & Beehr, 1995), despite the fact that retirement as a life course event (Quick & Moen, 1998) and the experience of retirement (Martin Mathews & Brown, 1988) can be genderdependent.”

“Finally, models applying a life-course perspective to retirement behavior imply that retirement is influenced by an individual’s experiences in the family domain, including marital satisfaction (Moen 1996), which itself is another quality-of-life indicator.”

“At the same time, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have made work more portable and ubiquitous which increases employee flexibility to organise work ( Moen, 1996”

“Questions of gender and retirement require consideration of the different work histories and experience of women and men (Calasanti 1993; Moen 1996).”

“The life course perspective places primary emphasis on the interdependence of the spheres of work and family (Elder, 1999; Moen, 1996; Raymo & Sweeney, 2006).”

“With regard to paid work, this finding is consistent with Thomas and colleagues (2005) who found no effect of the transition into retirement on psychological distress when compared with people who changed jobs (see also McGoldrick, 1989; Minkler, 1981; Moen, 1996).”

“the ‘‘plurality of life worlds’’ concept suggested by Moen (1996) and the assertions of Beehr (1986) and Feldman (1994) that people involved in activities outside the workplace are more likely to hold positive attitudes about the retirement lifestyle.”

“Flexibility also may mean taking days off in return for working at non standard time or being able to work part time temporarily at certain points in life ( Moen, 1996”

“There are, however, some elements that affect the decision to retire that are completely out of the retiree’s control, what Moen (1996) refers to as structural exigencies; early retirement incentive packages offered by organizations is one example.”

“We argue that the circumstances of the retirement transition itself are also important for well-being, an assumption derived from the life course perspective (Elder, 1995; Moen, 1996).”

“The psychological phenomena thought to shape this variation are age norms, or culturally shared definitions regarding the age at which certain roles, behaviours, or transitions such as retirement, should occur [12, 19, 21].”

“Social role theory (Biddle 1979, 1986), along with life-course theory (Elder 1998; Moen 1996), emphasizes that humans of all ages are complex socially oriented animals who operate within a ‘social environment’ and create ‘socially shared patterns of expectations for behavior’ (Newman and Newman 2017, 419; Pollard 2003…”

“These norms are culturally based and shape individual expectations and beliefs about appropriate retirement age (Moen, 1996).”

“For instance, Moen (1996) notes that volunteering may provide one source of ‘‘purpose, identity, and community’’ that compensates for the ‘‘roles and relationships’’ lost through retirement (133).”

“Keywords: Hong Kong; retirement; satisfaction; policy Today, retirement is recognized as a normal part of the life and work cycle (Kim & Moen, 2002; Moen, 1996).”

“In contrast to the objective measures of retirement instability, the subjective measure of incongruence may capture employees’ failure to control their retirement activity according to their wishes, with consequent adverse effects on psychological well-being (see Moen 1996).”

“The research instrument was a self-administered questionnaire incorporating questions drawn from a variety of sources, including the Health and Retirement Survey (Juster & Suzman, 1995); the Quality of Employment Survey (Quinn & Staines, 1979); and the Cornell Retirement and Well-Being Study ( Moen, 1996 ).”

“Today, many that retire early can expect to spend a third of their lifetime in retirement (Moen 1996).”

“goals could be due to the fact that, as a society, we lack clear norms regarding the roles individuals are expected to adopt in retirement (Moen, 1996).”

“, 2013); retirement could be viewed as a health-preserving life change as it relieves individuals from demanding work and provides more time for physical activities (Coe & Zamarro, 2011; Moen, 1996).”

“Retirement is then not an isolated stage of one’s life; rather, it is a part of one’s life history in which the past shapes the present (Elder, 1995; Moen, 1996).”

“The life course perspective also provides important insights regarding the mechanisms and consequences of the retirement transition because it views long-term patterns of changes during the life course within a social and historical context (Moen, 1996).”

“This study analyzes data collected in the United States in both the first (1994/95) and the second (1996/97) waves of the Cornell Retirement and Well-Being Study ( Moen, 1996; Pillemer, Moen, Wethington, & Glasgow, 28 Ageing International/Summer 2002”

“…a lifecourse perspective which suggests that differing levels of voluntary association affiliation reflect emerging priorities and role substitutions undertaken in order to maintain selfconcepts (Chambré, 1993; Gecas & Burke, 1995; Herzog & House, 1991; Moen, 1996; Musick, Herzog, & House, 1999).”

“…by guest on 24 July 2018 and women have, on average, differing life course trajectories of work and expectations and experiences of retirement (Moen, 1996; Rosenfield, 1989; Szinovacz & DeViney, 1999), suggesting that the relationship between job strain and health may differ by gender.”

“Rather than defining retirement as an inevitable withdrawal from society, loss of productive activity, and cause of financial instability (Moen, 1996), contemporary theory draws on the idea that retirement enables engagement in socially productive and meaningful activity, leading to better social and mental well-being…”

“Seeking to explain variations in general retirement planning, Moen (1996) adopts a life course perspective (as developed by Elder, 1995) to argue that differences in occupational pathways affect saving opportunities, thereby influencing the range of retirement strategies available.”

“According to social role theory perspective (Eagly, 1987), men have been socialized to take on a breadwinner role, and some researchers (e.g., Moen, 1996; Talaga & Beehr, 1995) suggest that this is a societal norm that causes men to feel more pressure than women to engage in providing for…”

“Increased social integration benefits mental health both through limiting the intensity and duration of negative affective states (Cohen, 2004; Ueno, 2005) and by allowing for the fulfilment of satisfying social roles (Moen, 1996; Cohen, 2004; Ueno, 2005).”

“Retirement is described to be both positive and negative to an individual’s health [19].”

“Research indicates that voluntary retirement and retirement timing can mediate the effect of mastery on satisfaction with retirement (Moen, 1996).”

“It also encompasses the notions of biographical continuity and linked lives—the ideas that older adults’ labour market trajectories follow from their paid work experiences at younger ages (Han & Moen, 1999a), and that those experiences are shaped by ties to family (Moen, 1996).”

“…that being married is an advantage in retirement (Dykstra, 1995; Price & Joo, 2005); specifically with regard to positive health behaviors among married persons (Moen, 1996; Pienta, Hayward, & Jenkins, 2000) and the availability of companionship and caregiver support in later life (Dykstra, 1995).”

“Similarly, family influences and career patterns shape the retirement patterns of men and women differently (DeViney & O’Rand, 1988; Henretta & O’Rand, 1983; Moen, 1996; O’Rand & Landerman, 1984; Williamson & McNamara, 2002).”

“The few studies that consider this variable indicate that personal control can directly influence retirement satisfaction (Moen, 1996; Price & Balaswamy, 2009; Solinge & Henkens, 2005).”

“This interdependence means that retirement decisions are not derived solely from individual circumstances but are also affected by the individual’s family situations Journal 50 (2013) 145–151 (Moen, 1996; Raymo & Sweeney, 2006).”

“…an outline of the three tasks occurring within Disengagement (deceleration , retirement planning, and retirement living), some research has examined retirement transitions and retirees' adaptation to retirement through volunteering (Moen, 1996; Wang, 2007; Wang, Henkens, & van Solinge, 2011).”

“Planning for late-life health care needs, such as medical insurance and long term care, are obviously important, as is maintaining an active lifestyle—not only for physical health, but also to sustain social integration and a sense of purpose ( Moen 1996 ).”

“The opinions and conclusions are solely those of the authors and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policies of SSA or any agency of the Federal Government or of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.”

“Retirement may worsen the financial situation of individuals, and lead to a decrease in their social support resources (Bosse, Aldwin, Levenson, Workman-Daniels, & Ekerdt, 1990; Moen, 1996).”

“These beneficial effects might, according to continuity role theory, result from the establishment of roles that substitute for paid work in terms of remaining socially productive, socially integrated and maintaining purposeful and valued roles [89], and, consequently, perceived social status.”

“According to the life course perspective developed by Moen (1996), the nature of jobs is likely to influence retirement quality, and could be an explanatory variable of the higher level of intrinsic motivation for knowledge.”

“For instance, Pollock (1988) compared five sex offenders of elderly people to seven sex offenders of younger victims.”

“Maddox (28) and Moen (29) further pointed out that quitting work could relieve stress and thus be beneficial to physical and mental health.”