Retirement from Three Perspectives: Individuals, Organizations, and Society

Abstract

An increasingly older US population, driven by the aging baby-boomer generation born after World War II, is resulting in a rapidly aging workforce. This phenomenon will almost necessarily lead to larger numbers of retirements, which may bring new challenges to individuals, organizations, and society. Retirement is not just a function of aging, however, because it involves a complex process due to a host of influential factors. In fact, although retirement ages in the US once seemed to be steadily declining, this trend reversed long ago, so that retirement ages have now been increasing slowly but steadily for several decades. Because retirements can be important to individuals who retire, to their employing organizations, and to the larger society in which they operate, we review retirement research from these varied perspectives. We note future research needs and pay special attention to publications since 2007, when we had written a chapter on a similar topic.