Better Understanding the Workers' Retirement Decision Attitudes: Development and Validation of a New Measure.

Evelyne Fouquereau,Virginie Demulier,Séverine Chevalier,Caroline Becker,Hélène Coillot,Grégoire Bosselut,Nicolas Gillet

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02429

Abstract

The aim of the present research was to develop a measure that could be used in future research for in-depth study of the psychological management of retirement. We report the results of six studies involving 1,898 French workers designed to develop and assess the psychometric properties of a new instrument named the Workers' Retirement Motivations Inventory (WRMI) using the push pull anti-push anti-pull model. The items were constructed based on a review of the relevant psychological literature and face-to-face interviews with senior workers. A combined method of exploratory structural equations modeling and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed and provided evidence for validating this structure of the inventory. The WRMI showed consistency of the four-factor structure across different samples, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and predictive validity of workers' plans for retirement. Implications of these findings and avenues for counseling activities and future research are discussed.

Highlights

In Europe, the number of retired people has increased significantly in recent decades and will continue to rise as the baby boom generation reaches retirement age (De Preter et al, 2013)
74 percent of items were derived from the literature (e.g., “Being afraid of being bored when I retire,” Maggiori et al, 2014) and 36 percent were obtained from interviews using content analysis (e.g., “Feeling that I can still play an active role at work”)
Some of the participants did not respond to all 88 items of the Workers’ Retirement Motivations Inventory (WRMI), but the percentage of missing values was lower than 5% and did not represent a problem (e.g., Graham and Hofer, 2000)

Summary

Introduction

In Europe, the number of retired people has increased significantly in recent decades and will continue to rise as the baby boom generation reaches retirement age (De Preter et al, 2013). Western countries are experiencing a serious economic crisis This clearly leads to a problematic disparity between an aging population and the state’s economic needs (Dervis, 2013). Organizations have developed incentives (e.g., training, flexible working hours; Dal Bianco et al, 2015) to encourage seniors to continue working (Van Solinge and Henkens, 2014). The success of these strategies is based on the assumption that older workers wish to continue working and to delay the end of their working life. This article aims to improve our understanding of the psychosocial conditions underlying workers’ retirement decisions by developing a new instrument to explore this process in depth, based on the push pull anti-push anti-pull model (Mullet et al, 2000)

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Conclusion