Paths to Retirement

When I retired in 2006, I returned to work almost at once. I was at odds with what was the norm for people retiring. Traditionally, workers transitioned from full-time work to full and permanent retirement. Since about 2006, my retirement was a process, often occurring in a series of steps over several years. Studies using longitudinal and cohort data show that there are multiple paths to retirement, revealing changes over time and between cohorts in how and when people choose to leave the workforce.

Some studies show a path leading from full-time to part-time work to full retirement. Others go from a full-time career job to another shorter duration job to full retirement. These intermediate jobs are referred to by researchers as bridge jobs. My brother is currently in a bridge job while he waits for his wife to retire. Other studies reveal a pattern of unretirement in which workers retire completely from full-time work and, after a period out of the workforce, return to either full- or part-time work. Younger generations are not only working longer, but they are much less likely to move from full-time employment to full and permanent retirement.

One study showed that the traditional pattern was followed by over 50% of men born 1913 to 1917. Of men born just two decades later, 34% follow this traditional path. Forty-five percent of men born 1943 to 1947 move to part-time work before retiring, and 26% of men and 29% of women in this cohort return to work after a period of retirement. Transitional retirements are increasingly the norm. Early Baby Boomers, especially women, are more likely than those in earlier cohorts to move to a bridge job before retiring. Both men and women in this cohort are also more likely than earlier cohorts to leave the workforce involuntarily through layoffs.

Full retirement is defined as reporting currently not working any hours for pay and describing oneself as retired. Partially retired workers are defined as people who report that they are retired but are also working fewer than 35 hours per week.

Over the period 1992 to 1998, about 52% of workers followed a traditional path. The balance of participants reveals a range of retirement patterns: 12.9% move to full retirement and then to part-time work; 6.3% go from retirement back to full-time work; nearly 8% remain partially retired throughout; 13.7% move from work to partial retirement to full retirement and 7.2% go from work to partial retirement back to full-time work. Thus about 30% of workers unretire within six years of retiring.

Overall, younger workers and men are most likely to unretire. Asked if they would like to continue doing some paid work after they retire; the vast majority of workers anticipate their retirement pattern. For this cohort, born 1931 to 1941, only 8% of those who say they had not expected to return to work ended up returning to work. Workers are more likely to return to part-time work than full time, especially if they are eligible for full Social Security retirement benefits.