Significant shortages of nursing staff threaten the provision of sustainable and high-quality patient care, which may be partially addressed by encouraging experienced staff to postpone their complete exit from the workforce and extend their careers. This qualitative study explored the transition to retirement, the motivation to engage in post-retirement work, and experiences of working after retirement among retired nursing assistants (aged 67-75 years) working in inpatient psychiatric care in Sweden. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used and allowed for a detailed, in-depth systematic analysis of data from seven individual interviews. Four superordinate themes were identified: (1) Adjustment difficulties to life as fully retired; (2) Good health as a precondition to work and a consequence of working; (3) The intrinsic joy of working and the importance of feeling competent; and (4) Work and organization-related factors contributed to well-being at work and facilitated an extended working life. Post-retirement work was found to facilitate the transition to retirement and contribute to well-being. Furthermore, good health was considered a prerequisite for, and a consequence of, continued working. Intrinsic motivation to work, being competent in performing the job, along with different work and organizational factors were considered important to continuing working after retirement. The findings contribute to informing the design of work environments and tailored HR strategies that facilitate aging-in-workplace and encourage extended working lives.

Preferred retirement age (PRA) is one key dimension when studying retirement decision-making. However, little is known concerning how PRA develops over the late career years. This study used a person-centered approach to longitudinally investigate trajectories of PRA and how they differ in self-rated health, perceived work ability, and effort–reward imbalance (ERI) at baseline levels and over 6 years. The study used data from four waves (2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016) of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health. The sample consisted of 1,510 individuals aged 50–55 in 2010, who answered to the questionnaire for those in paid work (including self-employment) at the baseline and at least one of the following waves. Results from the latent class growth curve modeling show both within- and between-person variability in PRA over the 6-year span. We found four distinct trajectories, which differed both at the baseline levels and in the patterns of change in PRA: “C1: normative, relatively stable PRA” (42% of all participants); “C2: considerably early, increasing PRA” (6% of the participants); “C3: late, relatively stable PRA” (4% of the participants); and “C4: early, increasing PRA” (49% of the participants). Participants revealed a clear preference for retirement before the age of 65. Trajectories comprising earlier PRA showed poorer self-rated health, poorer work ability, and higher levels of ERI at the baseline and over time. The findings reinforce the importance of healthy work environments that promote work ability and facilitate a balance between efforts and rewards for encouraging longer working lives. 

Meaningful work is related to the motivation to continue to work in older ages and later retirement. This qualitative study addresses calls for further research on the meaning of working for older workers using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis approach to explore in-depth the dimensions underlying the subjective experience of meaningful work among 27 nurses and nursing assistants aged 55–75 years. The findings show that work was perceived as a primary source of: (1) personal identity (2) purpose and contribution, (3) competence and accomplishment, (4) social contacts and belongingness, (5) activity, routines and purposeful use of time, and (6) economic security and freedom. These qualitative findings may be applied in interventions aiming to encourage extended working lives in key welfare occupations, which are facing significant staff shortages.

In many countries, eldercare workers are approaching retirement. To remain attractive to older and experienced workers, organizations need to understand how employees nearing retirement think about and experience theirwork situation. This qualitative study investigated how older nursing assistants within residential care for older people experienced aging at work, their psychosocial work environment, and their late-career planning. Semistructured interviews with eight nursing assistants (aged 55–61 years) in Sweden were analyzed using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis approach. The results show that the psychosocial work environment was perceived as stressful and considered a long-term health risk, and that (future) health and work ability were key factors determining nursing assistants' late-career planning. Moreover, personal resources and social support from colleagues seemed protective against job demands. Aspects considered in late-career planning also included personal finances and meaningfulness of work. While these findings may be sample-specific, they still provide insights into the experiences of an important occupational group. This means that the findings can be useful for organizations aiming at promoting successful and sustainable aging-in-workplace and encouraging extended working lives.

To counteract the shortage of nurses in the workforce, healthcare organizations must encourage experienced nurses to extend their working lives. Intensive care (IC) has higher nurse-to-patient ratios than other settings, which includes a particular susceptibility to staff shortage. This qualitative study investigated how older IC nurses experienced their working life and their reflections on the late-career and retirement. Semi-structured interviews with 12 IC nurses in Sweden (aged 55–65 years) were analyzed using an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach. The results showed that nurses planned to continue working until the age of 65 and beyond. When reflecting on their late-career decisions, nurses considered nine areas covering individual, work, and organizational factors as being central to their ability and willingness to stay. Overall, the nurses had good health and were very satisfied and committed to their job and to the organization. They mentioned having both the job and personal resources required to cope with the physical and mental job demands, which were perceived as motivational challenges, rather than hinders. They also reflected on various human resource management practices that may promote aging-in-workplace. These findings may inform organizations aiming at providing adequate conditions for enabling healthy and sustainable working lives for IC nurses. 

To address the challenges of demographic aging, governments and organizations encourage extended working lives. This study investigates how individual health- and age-related workplace factors contribute to preferred, expected and actual retirement timing, as well as to the congruency between preferences vs. expectations, and preferences vs. actual retirement. We used data from a representative Swedish longitudinal sample comprising 4058 workers aged 50–64, with follow-up data regarding actual retirement timing available for 1164 respondents. Multinomial logistic regression analyses suggest that later preferred, expected, and actual retirement timing were, to different extent, influenced by better health, an age-friendly workplace and feeling positive regarding the future at work. Emotional exhaustion, age-related inequalities at work and experiencing aging as an obstacle increased the likelihood of preferring to retire earlier than one expected to, over retiring at the time one expected to. Those with better health and positive work prospects were less likely to prefer retiring earlier than they expected to, and more likely to being “pulled toward working until 65 and beyond”, compared to being “pulled toward early retirement”. Experiencing aging as an obstacle decreased the chances of being “pulled toward working until 65 and beyond”. The results provide insights on how to facilitate extended working lives.

In an unstable and unpredictable labor market, older workers are in a particularly disadvantaged situation. Indeed, from the moment an individual becomes unemployed, age is the most powerful individual attribute affecting how long it will take to find a new job, and for many older individuals, job loss in fact leads to their permanent exclusion from the labor market. Nevertheless, older unemployed individuals are an understudied population in unemployment research. In the literature, unemployment has consistently been associated with reduced well-being, and research has shown that an important determinant of well-being during unemployment is an individual’s involvement in personally meaningful activities. Yet, studies on the psychological mechanisms underlying the positive association between activity and well-being during unemployment seem to be relatively scarce. This study investigates to what extent engagement in meaningful activities by older unemployed people is associated with their well-being and if this relationship is mediated by the perceived quality of the psychosocial environment – operationalized as the perceived access to the latent benefits of employment and the environmental “vitamins” included, respectively, in the latent deprivation model and the vitamin model. The sample comprised 185 Portuguese unemployed individuals aged 40+, who were asked to fill in self-report questionnaires in job- and training centers located in the Porto metropolitan area. Ordinary least squares path analyses were calculated to investigate the mediational model. Results show that the activities in which participants were most engaged were passive activities at home, followed by family-related activities and domestic chores. Furthermore, results suggest that the engagement in certain activities during unemployment – social and cultural activities and work-related activities – is beneficial for well-being through the perception of greater social contacts and the perception of greater contribution to society and integration in the community. These findings may be useful for both policy-making and practitioners aiming to turn unemployment into a less psychologically harmful experience.

Purpose: This study aimed at investigating how older nursing assistants working in elderly care experienced aging at work and perceived their psychosocial work environment, as well as exploring the role of work- and organizational factors in their retirement preferences.

Design/Methodology/Approach/Intervention: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight nursing assistants (age 55–61 years), and working in residential care. Data were analyzed using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis approach.

Results: The analysis identified four super-ordinate themes: 1) meaning of work; 2) psychosocial work environment; 3) experience of aging; 4) retirement decision-making. Work was experienced as demanding, characterized by high workload, time pressure, and low control. Furthermore, participants perceived few possibilities for job crafting and were concerned about being unable to manage their workload once they got older. A main driver for working after retirement was the possibility to work on one’s own terms and to reduce current job demands.

Limitations: While the small and homogeneous sample limits generalization, it allows for a detailed investigation of the subjective experiences of this group of older workers. Yet, studies in different occupational groups and organizations are needed.

Research/Practical Implications: Findings highlight the importance of healthy psychosocial work environments and organizational practices that promote sustainable work and successful aging in the workplace.

Originality/Value: Due to an accelerated demographic aging, it is important to increase the knowledge of how nursing assistants approaching retirement in the elderly care perceive opportunities and constraints to them prolonging their working life. Furthermore, qualitative studies, particularly among blue-collar occupations, remain few.

Purpose: One key dimension in the study of retirement decision making is the preferred retirement age (PR-A). Another relevant although less investigated indicator is the age at which one realistically expects to retire (ER-A). This study aimed at identifying trajectories of preferred- and expected retirement age and exploring their associations with changes in self-rated health, depressive symptoms and effortreward imbalance (ERI).

Design/Methodology/Approach/Intervention: The study used data from four waves (2010, 2012, 2014, 2016) of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health. Sample consisted of 1440 workers aged 50–59 in 2010 who participated in all waves. Latent class growth modeling was used to estimate trajectories of PR-A and ER-A and their associations with self-rated health, depressive symptoms and ERI were investigated. Participants were divided in two groups according to age at T0 (50-54; 5559) and analyses were age stratified.

Results: Preliminary results suggest both between-person and within-person variability in retirement age preferences and expectations over six years in the two groups. Trajectories characterised by lower PRA were associated with poorer health and higher levels of ERI. ER-A trajectories in turn seem to be less associated with health and ERI.

Limitations: This study relies exclusively on self-report measures.

Research/Practical Implications: The findings reinforce the importance of healthy work environments that facilitate a balance between efforts and rewards for promoting longer working lives.

Originality/Value: Retirement longitudinal studies are scarce and this study is one of the first to investigate longitudinal relationships between PR-A and ER-A trajectories, and health and effort-reward imbalance at work.

Purpose: This study investigated the transition to retirement, the motivation to work, and experiences of working in bridge employment in a group of retired nursing assistants.

Design/Methodology/Approach/Intervention: The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach was used to analyze data from semi-structured interviews with seven retired nursing assistants working at a Swedish hospital.

Results: This presentation focuses on “The meaning of work and retirement”, one of four superordinate themes identified in the participants’ accounts. Full retirement was regarded as “the end of the road”, leading to stagnation in life. In contrast, work was perceived as a booster of physical and mental health. By fulfilling important psychosocial needs (such as providing a sense of purpose and belonging, identity, social contact and nurturing, time structure, a source of activity), bridge employment allowed for a gradual adjustment to retirement, which in turn contributed to well-being.

Limitations: The study is based on a small sample in a specific context, which limits the generalization of the results. However, this homogeneity of the sample allowed for a detailed account of the subjective experiences of a particular group of individuals. Yet, further studies in different occupational groups and organizations are needed.

Research/Practical Implications: This study contributes to a further understanding of issues involved in the adjustment to retirement and what it is that motivates people to continue working as nursing assistants, an important occupation within the healthcare sector.

Originality/Value: This research meets the call for more qualitative research on the meaning of working and retirement specifically for bridge employees.