Abstract
Retirement is an eagerly awaited life transition for many older workers, but some may anticipate their exit from the workforce will result in loss of meaningful work-based activities and social interactions. For older workers more committed to their organization, retirement might represent a threat to maintaining a consistent, positive identity. Across three pre-registered studies of US adults aged 49 to 75, we investigated the relationship between organizational commitment and anticipated identity changes in retirement. Studies 1 and 2 (N = 1059) found that older workers largely anticipated positive changes to their identity in retirement. In Study 2, we divided older workers into two conditions and used a framing manipulation to present retirement as either a ‘role exit’ or a ‘role entry’. In the ‘role exit’ condition, older workers less committed to their organization anticipated more positive changes when they held more group memberships compared to those with fewer group memberships. Those in the ‘role entry’ condition anticipated significantly more positive changes to their identity in retirement than those in the ‘role exit’ condition, but did not anticipate more positive changes based on organizational commitment or group memberships. More group memberships, but not lower organizational commitment, was associated with more positive anticipation of identity changes in retirement. Study 3 (N = 215) surveyed older adults after they had retired, finding that identity changes experienced post-retirement were less positive than those anticipated by older workers. We discuss the theoretical and applied implications of these findings for older workers’ retirement decisions and wellbeing.
Highlights
Retirement can be broadly defined as an individual’s exit from the workforce occurring after middle age (Wang & Shi, 2014), and while retirement can be an eagerly anticipated later life milestone, very little is known about how older workers expect themselves to change when they exit the workplace for the last time
We found that older workers largely anticipated positive changes to their identity in retirement (M = 0.83, standard deviations (SD) = 0.69) with 92% reporting a value above the ‘no change’ value of ‘0’ (3% no change; 5% negative changes, one-sample t-test, t(510) = 27.36, p < 0.001)
We hypothesized that older workers with higher organizational commitment would anticipate less positive changes to their identity following retirement than those less committed, we found no association between the two (See Table 2, Step 1, b = 0.03, p = 0.222)
Summary
Retirement can be broadly defined as an individual’s exit from the workforce occurring after middle age (Wang & Shi, 2014), and while retirement can be an eagerly anticipated later life milestone (van Solinge & Henkens, 2007), very little is known about how older workers expect themselves to change when they exit the workplace for the last time. Important aspects of identity including physical appearance, attitudes, hobbies, material belongings and social relationships might all be subject to change upon leaving an organization and the workforce (James, 1890; Oyserman et al, 2012). These changes represent a potential disruption to identity continuity and subsequent wellbeing (Kim & Moen, 2002; Zittoun et al, 2003). Better understanding of how older workers anticipate identity changes in retirement is important to understanding the potential disruption that might occur around retirement, as this anticipation is a likely factor in present-day decisions
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