Does Bridge Employment Mitigate or Exacerbate Inequalities Later in Life?

This paper explores how gradual retirement impacts inequality later in life, with a focus on transitions from career to bridge employment. We use 26 years of longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study to document the various pathways that older Americans take when exiting the labor force, and examine how bridge employment impacts non-housing wealth and total wealth, including the present discounted value of Social Security benefits. We find that gradual retirement in the form of bridge employment neither exacerbates nor mitigates wealth inequalities among Americans who held career jobs later in life. We do find evidence that wealth inequalities grow among the subset of older career workers who transition from career employment to bridge employer at older ages. These findings provide quantitative evidence that bridge employment at older ages is taken by those who need to continue working financially and those who continue working for nonpecuniary reasons.

The Impact of Retirement on Happiness and Loneliness in Poland—Evidence from Panel Data

This paper examines the impact of retirement on people’s subjective quality of life, as expressed by their levels of happiness and loneliness, in Poland. We analysed five waves of the Social Diagnosis panel survey conducted between 2007 and 2015. To account for unobserved individual heterogeneity, we employed fixed effects ordered logit models and fixed effect logistic models for the panel data. We found that the respondents’ happiness levels did not change after they retired, and that the introduction of interactions between retirement and employment did not alter these findings. However, the results of the loneliness model showed that the probability of being lonely increased among males after retirement. Second, the outcomes of interactions between retirement and employment suggested that not working after retirement increased the likelihood of being lonely among men, whereas engaging in bridge employment decreased the chances of being lonely among men. These findings may indicate that combining retirement with employment may be a source of social interaction, which can provide protection against loneliness, and which may, in turn, be positively related to other factors (i.e., subjective quality of life, health status, and mortality).

Does Work after Retirement Matter? Sleep Features among Workers in the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health

A growing number of people keep working after retirement, a phenomenon known as bridge employment. Sleep features, which are related to morbidity and mortality outcomes, are expected to be influenced by bridge employment or permanent retirement. The objective of this study was to analyze sleep duration and quality of bridge employees and permanent retirees compared to nonretired, i.e., active workers, from the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil). Participants (second wave of ELSA-Brasil, 2012–2014) comprised permanently retired (n = 2348), career bridge workers (n = 694), bridge workers in a different place (n = 760), and active workers (n = 6271). The associations of all studied retirement schemes and self-reported sleep quality and duration were estimated through logistic and linear regression analysis. Workers from all studied retirement schemes showed better sleep patterns than active workers. In comparison to active workers, bridge workers who had changed workplace also showed a reduced chance of difficulty falling asleep and too-early awakenings, which were not found among career bridge workers. Bridge employment and permanent retirement were associated with a reduced chance of reporting sleep deficit. Bridge work at a different place rather than staying at the same workplace seems to be favorable for sleep. Further study is needed to explain mechanisms.

The Importance of Bridge Jobs in America Today

Gradual retirement, consisting of phased retirement, bridge employment, and reentry, has been a persistent feature of older Americans’ work decisions for decades. This persistence is remarkable in light of the many changes to the retirement landscape that have taken place since the mid-1980s, including changes to Social Security incentives, private-sector pensions, and macroeconomic volatility. Our paper addresses two topics related to these retirement transitions. First, using 26 years of data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we quantify the prevalence of bridge employment among the initial group of HRS respondents. For the first time, bridge job prevalence can be calculated for a large cohort of older Americans who have completed their retirement transitions. Second, we comment on what these findings mean for policymakers, with respect to income inequality later in life, barriers to retirement pathways, and public-private sector differences, and what role public employers might be able to play.

Factors Influencing Bridge Employment Engagement: With Reference on Health Sector in Sri Lanka

Purpose: Ageing population will eventually have a dramatic effect on the country’s economy, as it influences on the size of the labor force available. Indorsing longer working lives by encouraging retirees back to the work force has been encouraged by many as a viable option to combat this issue and one way to do this is through bridge employment. Bridge employment is paid work undertaken after retirement from the main vocation but before leaving the labor force completely. The aim of this study is to identify factors influencing bridge employment in health sector in Sri Lanka. Design: Comparing developed and developing context literatures, the study focused on how job-related factors (financial motives and organizational environment) and the societal-level factors (personal fulfillment and social relationship) affect to the bridge employment. Quantitative approach was used. Primary data were collected through a questionnaire survey. To fulfill the study aim, 296 employees representing doctors and nurses, were taken as the sample of this study. Findings: The binary logistic regression analysis results indicated that 21.9 per cent variation of the bridge employment can be explained by organizational environment, financial motives, social relationship and personal fulfillment. Among the factors, personal fulfillment, social relationship and organizational environment were significant determinants of bridge employment in health sector in Sri Lanka. Financial motive was not a significant predictor on bridge employment engagement. Research Implications: The study findings can aid to healthcare centers and pharmaceutical industry as great opportunity in gaining expertise knowledge of bridge employees by understanding influences of personal fulfillment, social relationship and organizational environment factors on their expectations. Further, the findings will be useful to local and global human resources specialists to access and evaluate the research findings to develop new HRM practices based on bride employment. Limitations: The responsiveness of older employees to providing data, is below than the expected responsiveness.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS AMONG RETIRED PEOPLE IN SELECTED URBAN AND RURAL – A REVIEW

ABSTRACT Retirement is the act of retiring or the state of being retired, i.e. to withdraw oneself from business, public life or and to remove from active service. However, it is important to recognize that retirement as a single life event is rarely the cause of these outcomes. Perhaps people with greater work ethic might be more prepared for retirement and might feel it to be their “just reward” for their years of hard work. Also found that retirees who had higher entrepreneurial orientations were more likely to engage in career bridge employment than in full retirement, whereas retirees who had more desire to pursue a new career were more likely to engage in bridge employment in a different field than in full retirement. A significantly negative relationship was found between loneliness, depression, hopelessness and income. Conclusion shows that institutionalization might lead to poor mental health. Key Words: Psychological problems in old age, Urban and rural area.