Bridge Employment Research Articles

Factors affecting bridge employment behavior: Surveying Chinese older adults as anchors in social media

Social media has brought new opportunities to bridge employment and has become an essential channel for addressing the issue of an aging society. This study aims to explore the factors influencing bridge employment behavior among older adults on social media platforms. This analysis collected 757 older adults from China who continue to work as anchors in social media after retiring. Data collection was conducted over ten days via structured questionnaires divided into eight sections. Furthermore, this study conducts structural equation modeling (SEM) to process the data. The results indicate that social capital (beta = 0.183, p = 0.004) and bridge employment policies (beta = 0.123, p = 0.031) have a significant positive impact on intention to bridge employment. Subjective norms (beta = 0.197, p < 0.001), attitudes (beta = 0.204, p < 0.001), and perceived behavioral control (beta= 0.147, p = 0.004) also positively and significantly influence intention to bridge employment. Subjective norms, attitudes, and perceived behavioral control serve as crucial mediators in the relationship between social capital, bridge employment policies, and intention to bridge employment. Finally, intention (beta = 0.480, p = 0.001) is a strong predictor of bridge employment behavior and acts as a mediator within the model. The findings suggest that enhancing social capital and well-structured employment policies can significantly influence older adults’ acceptance and sustained participation in bridge employment on social media platforms.

Age Well, Work Well: Relationship of Healthy Aging with Career Commitment and Bridge Employment Intentions among Pre-Retirees

Old age is considered an achievement to complete the milestones of one's life. However, the aging population presents significant economic, social, and health challenges. There is a need to address these challenges by focusing on bridge employment after retirement and considering healthy aging an essential part of later life. This correlational research aims to study the relationship between healthy ageing, career commitment and bridge employment intention among pre-retirees. Sample of 308 older employees (M= 57.79, SD= 1.88) was selected from government educational sector of Lahore, Pakistan by using non probability purposive sampling technique. The measure included Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire, The Occupational Commitment Scale, and Bridge Employment Intention Scale. Results indicate a significant positive relation of healthy aging with career commitment (r = .27, p< .05) and bridge employment intention (r = .17, p< .05) of pre-retirees. Inversely, employee’s education has significant negative relationship with healthy ageing (r = -.12, p< .05), career commitment (r = -.19, p< .01) and bridge employment intention (r = -.29, p< .01). Further, the mediation analysis through Hayes process macro model 4 revealed that career commitment mediates the relationship between healthy aging and bridge employment intention. The study provides a valuable insight and suggested that the organizations should value experienced employees for institutional growth and implement flexible work arrangements, continuous learning opportunities and health and wellness programs to promote work after retirement.

Bridge employment approach for return to work: a systematic review for model development

Purpose Retirement is a preparation for transitioning from one role to another and transitioning to a new stage of life. The deepening aging of the population encourages the policymakers to start the Bridge Employment plan when the society faces the unprecedented challenges of decreasing labor supply, heavier burdens of retirement and slow economic growth. The purpose of this study, the decision model for Bridge Employment has been developed by systematically reviewing the research literature. Design/methodology/approach A bibliometric analysis was conducted to cover publications on Bridge Employment for Return to Work published from 1994 to 2023, including a total of 1,936 publications collected from the Web of Science and Scopus. The patterns and trends in terms of sources of publications, intellectual structure and major topics were analyzed. Findings After carefully examining the results of the selected studies, three categories of individual (micro level), organizational (medium level) and contextual (macro level) factors were identified as effective factors on bridge employment and model development. Each of the mentioned factors, along with the legal, financial, managerial, educational-administrative and consulting requirements, form the basis for the development of the model and decision framework for Paul’s employment. Originality/value This model can be a basis as a framework for bridge recruitment planning so that organizations can once again use their skills–knowledge–expertise in different jobs and even training younger people.

Bridge Employment or Encore Career? Examining Predictors That Distinguish Later-Life Career Transitions.

Bridge employment and encore careers are 2 prevalent retirement pathways that have different goals and outcomes. Yet, "changing jobs in later life" is the shared prequel that blurs the distinction between them in empirical studies. This study proposes a set of criteria-voluntariness of career transition and the duration of work in the posttransition job-to distinguish various retirement pathways and investigates the predictors that distinguish the workers' choice of these pathways. I conducted multinomial logistic regression to examine the predictors that distinguish between bridge employment, encore career, and direct workforce exit using the longitudinal sample of respondents with full-time career jobs in the Health and Retirement Study 1992-2020 (HRS, N = 2,038). To examine the predictors that distinguish between bridge employment and encore careers, I conducted logistic regression on the subsample of respondents who chose either bridge employment or encore careers (n = 927). The results show that the accumulated human capital from career jobs, physical and mental health conditions before leaving career jobs, and self-identified retirement status when transitioning to new jobs distinguish the workers' choices of taking on different retirement pathways. Maintaining the labor force participation of older workers is an important human resource agenda for policymakers. This study suggests that increasing the number of quality jobs for older workers would promote bridge employment and encore careers by raising the benefits of making career transitions as well as improving older workers' health.

An existential perspective on post‐retirement decisions: The role of meaning in life and social identity

AbstractIn the context of the ageing workforce, late‐career development implies ongoing decisions during retirement regarding one's engagement in volunteering and bridge employment activities. While prior research has emphasized the role of the meaning of work in retirement decisions, it has not examined the roles that meaning in life and identity play in decisions made during retirement. Relying on the existential framework on meaning and career decision‐making, this article explores the role of social identities as retirees and as workers as critical self‐concept dimensions that may mediate the impact of meaning in life (search and presence) on their decisions to pursue bridge employment and to volunteer in retirement. Using an archival survey study relying on a time‐lagged design with a one‐year interval among 204 retirees, we found that retirees demonstrating a greater search for meaning in life exhibited positive identification with the worker social identity but negative identification with the retiree social identity. Additionally, worker social identity was positively associated with bridge employment; however, retiree social identity was negatively associated with bridge employment and positively with volunteering. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

The new meaning of retirement for bridge employees: Situating bridge employment through the lens of the Kaleidoscope Career Model

AbstractRetirees re‐entering the workforce, popularly termed as bridge employment, is a phenomenon that is anticipated to increase in the coming years. Though research establishes that these employees have unique aspirations and work motives (see Mazumdar et al., 2020), primary research on how the retirement transition and bridge employment shape each other is scarce. This is troubling because a better understanding of the aspirations and motives of potential employees is an important step in designing suitable employee development strategies. To fill this gap in the literature, our paper explores the significance of retirement for those retirees who engage in bridge employment. We also explore whether bridge employment is unique from pre‐retirement employment. We interviewed 26 bridge employees and analyzed their narrations using the thematic analysis method. We utilized the Kaleidoscope Career Model by Mainiero and Sullivan (2005) to contextualize our analysis. Our study reveals that bridge employees uniquely reconstruct the meaning of retirement as a frontier between “prioritizing the obligations” and “prioritizing self.” Our findings also demonstrate how this view allows retirees to prioritize self‐directed goals during bridge employment. Our paper enriches the human resource development literature on careers and retirement by examining it from the vantage point of bridge employees. We shed light on how re‐framing the narratives of retirement helps distinguish between bridge employment and pre‐retirement employment for retirees. Better understanding this distinction can help lay the foundation for crafting suitable employee development programs for improved motivation and retention.

SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF BRIDGE EMPLOYMENT: DO BIRTH COHORTS MATTER?

Abstract A growing number of retirees now engage in bridge employment, a term referring to their continued participation in the workforce post-retirement. The generation in South Korea born between 1945 and 1955, a period marked by leading industrialization and experiencing economic crises during their working age, exhibits unique socioeconomic characteristics distinct from later generations. Consequently, their retirement trajectories diverge significantly from those of later cohorts, including the Baby Boomer generation (born between 1956 and 1965). In this paper, we investigate whether social, demographic, psychological, and health factors are associated with bridge employment and whether this association differs across birth cohorts. Data were drawn from seven waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, conducted between 2008 and 2020. We employ an integrative framework that considers socioeconomic status, health status, and psychological factors as the main variables to explain the odds of continuing to work after retirement. Retirement status includes three categories: employed, bridge, and total retirement. Results from a multinomial logit model reveal birth cohort differences in the relationship between social/psychological predictors and bridge employment. Additionally, higher educational attainment, a private pension, and poor mental health are associated with decisions regarding bridge employment for the industrialization generation, but not for Baby Boomers. Furthermore, females are more likely to participate in bridge employment than males for the industrialization generation, but not for Baby Boomers. Our findings contribute to the current literature on bridge employment by identifying the social determinants of bridge employment and highlighting the importance of cohort differences in bridge employment.

BRIDGE EMPLOYMENT OR ENCORE CAREER? PREDICTORS THAT DISTINGUISH LATER LIFE CAREER TRANSITIONS

Abstract Moving away from the traditional lock-step retirement to multiple retirement pathways, later-life career transition has been prevalent for about a half-century (Ruhm, 1990). So-called “encore career,” many older workers start their second career after leaving their original career jobs. However, leaving one’s career job is not a distinct prequel to an encore career; instead, it is an essential step to bridge employment as well. While these two transitions have different purposes, reasons, and outcomes, the predictors distinguishing between them are relatively not well-documented. Using the sample of respondents with career jobs in the Health and Retirement Study, this study distinguished various later-life transitions by the voluntariness of career transition and the duration of labor force participation after the transition and then investigated the predictors that distinguish between bridge employment and encore career. Based on the theoretical predictions from multiple disciplines, such as the resource-based dynamic process model and continuity theory, I stated and tested a set of hypotheses using multinomial logit estimation. The result showed that financial, physical, and mental health resources, and retirement identity when transitioning to new jobs predict whether older workers take bridge employment or encore careers. This result provides a helpful hint to policymakers and employers who want to retain older workers in the labor force. Because the indicators for the voluntariness of career transition are available for those who left their career employers only, further research is needed once the voluntariness measures for other work adjustments are available.

Shrinking labour geographies: Transport access for paid work in later ages

Background and objectivesIn developing countries, a substantial share of the older population is employed (WHO, 2007), which is anticipated to triple between 2020 and 2050, bolstered by the rise of bridge employment in later life. Bridge jobs are part-time, informal work arrangements that serve as a transitional phase between full-time employment and retirement. While transport access for older adults is a primary policy concern in the age-friendly cities framework, their experiences of encountering and negotiating labour geographies, particularly transport systems to access bridge employment, are understudied. Research design and methodsThis paper used a qualitative and interpretative approach to analyse how older adults engage in nonlinear work patterns and commute to workspaces. We use a combination of visual mapping, observations, and in-depth interviews with older adults in Bengaluru, an urban metropolis in southern India. ResultsOlder workers engage in regular mobility routines to access informal bridge jobs. Our results suggest that the precarity of their bridge jobs permeates into their mobilities. Class, gender, and spatialities create additional layers of barriers to their already constrained transport resources. Economically disadvantaged older individuals encountered shrinking labour geographies due to unaffordable public transportation and first-and-last-mile journeys. For reasons of safety, older women were forced to depend on shared and public transport options, which were often unreliable. Lastly, older workers residing in geographically marginalised areas find more difficulty in organising transport to bridge jobs. Discussion and implicationsBridge jobs in informal arrangements are important means of livelihood for older persons in countries like India. Apart from the already precarious working conditions, the weak systemic transport support induces strain on the working conditions of older workers. From the purview of labour geography, adding to the natural limits of ageing, induced limits such as ageism and precarity at workplaces and non-age-friendly transport infrastructure create situations of vulnerable employment among older adults in the cities of the Global South.

Career Bridge Employment Intentions Among Academic Staff in Higher Education Institutions in Thailand: Understanding the Interactive Effect of Bridge Employment Practices and Work Passion

Career Bridge Employment Intentions Among Academic Staff in Higher Education Institutions in Thailand: Understanding the Interactive Effect of Bridge Employment Practices and Work Passion

Trajectories of Informal and Formal Social Participation After Retirement

Abstract Literature suggests that on average, social participation declines after retirement. However, there likely remains substantial variability in individual experiences. We rely on seven waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging to identify contrasting social participation trajectories of individuals 45 years and older after leaving work, and their individual-level correlates. Informal and formal social participation were measured through self-reported frequencies of meeting a friend and attending a group respectively. Group-based trajectory modeling delineated heterogeneous changes over time and multinomial logit regressions estimated individual-level correlates of the trajectories. While a minority of respondents experienced trajectories of decreasing social participation (6%–12%), a majority exhibited stable trajectories (79%–81%), and some even experienced increasing participation (7%–8%). There was also a U-shaped trajectory of decline and recovery in formal social participation (7%). Our findings challenge the belief that disengagement is the norm and illustrate the heterogeneous experiences of social participation after retirement. Returning to work, vs. stopping work for an extended period, was associated with favorable trajectories, pointing to the strong connection between work and social participation, and the potential for interventions that promote bridge employment and lifelong learning. Interestingly, the high stable trajectory of informal participation was associated with certain factors that may be considered vulnerabilities, such as being older, female, single, living in non-metropolitan regions, and retiring from irregular work. This highlights the possibility that despite facing challenges, older adults can aspire towards high social participation.

Empowered to Stay Active: Psychological Empowerment, Retirement Timing, and Later Life Work

Motivating older employees both to prolong their working lives and to stay active even after retirement has become increasingly important due to rising old-age dependency ratios. Later life work—including both paid work and volunteering—has thus become an important topic for scholars and practitioners. We aim to extend research on later life work by hypothesizing that psychological empowerment at work increases not only desired and actual retirement ages but also levels of later life work. Second, we test differential effects of psychological empowerment on later life work, expecting it to be more strongly related to paid work after retirement (i.e., bridge employment) than to volunteering. Third, we suggest that the relationship between psychological empowerment and bridge employment depends on the employees’ level of physical limitations. We used data from a longitudinal panel study in Germany in which structured telephone interviews were conducted. A sample of older individuals who had retired between two waves of measurement was drawn (time lag: three years; n = 210). The results of a path analysis support the postulated mediation. Furthermore, as expected, psychological empowerment more accurately predicted bridge employment than volunteering, and physical limitations moderated the relationship between psychological empowerment and bridge employment. Lastly, additional analyses on the individual empowerment facets revealed that only the competence facet played a significant role in the proposed hypotheses. Overall, our findings suggest that psychological empowerment may help to increase older employees’ motivation to delay retirement and to stay active even after retirement.

Senior entrepreneurs: the impact of temporal perception on the entrepreneurial process

PurposeLonger life expectancy brings a new phenomenon: senior entrepreneurship. Whereas starting a business involves investing energy, time, money or other types of resources, ageing is somewhat incompatible with these terms. Research on the impact of time perception on the entrepreneurial process is rather scarce. Considering the lack of knowledge related to the impact of time perception on the entrepreneurship process, this study aims to answer the following research question: how does temporal perception influence the entrepreneurial process?Design/methodology/approachSenior entrepreneurs are the most relevant category of individuals from which the impact of time perception could be observed, as they are objectively closer to the end of their careers than younger entrepreneurs. Therefore, longitudinal research was conducted by interviewing five senior entrepreneurs at 4-year intervals.FindingsResults show that there are two types of temporal perception in entrepreneurship: temporal perception of the entrepreneur's career and temporal perception of the enterprise's development. When these two-time perspectives are not synchronized with the entrepreneur's vision, the entrepreneur develops strategies for seeking to re-establish synchronicity between the temporal perspective (TP) of their entrepreneurial career and that of the business development. The senior entrepreneur is distinguished from a traditional entrepreneur by a limited TP of their entrepreneurial career combined with the notions of bridge employment and generativity.Research limitations/implicationsThe number of cases under study did not allow us to examine every possible type of situation. The sampling of the cases under study did not offer great diversity in terms of gender, as the study had only men. However, the range of ages at startup, from 50 to 65 years, provides greater diversity, as does the range of business segments that included the service, manufacturing and retail food industries.Originality/valueEntrepreneurs with a limited career time perspective correspond to senior entrepreneurs, while others who have an open career prospect, regardless of their age, correspond to any other form of an entrepreneur. This study has also been able to identify that an entrepreneur who realizes their limited entrepreneurial career horizon and perceives a temporal purpose of their company in the service of the involved parties tends to plan the entrepreneurial exit phase.

Person-vocation and same organization bridge employment intention: Testing the mediating and moderating roles of person-organization fit

BACKGROUND: During the last decades, much research has been accomplished on the antecedents of bridge employment. Nevertheless, there is limited investigation into the influence of person-environment fit levels on retirement intentions. OBJECTIVE: This study’s purpose was to examine the interactive effect of person-environment fit levels on the intention to pursue bridge employment. More specifically, the authors investigated the mediator and moderator roles of person-organization fit on the relationship between person-vocation fit and the intention to pursue bridge employment within the same organization. METHODS: Data from 246 older executives working in the French banking sector were used to test the hypotheses. RESULTS: The results indicated the existence of a positive and significant relationship between person-vocation fit and the intention to pursue bridge employment within the same organization. Further, the findings confirmed the mediating and moderating roles of person-organization fit on this relationship. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study have theoretically and empirically extended person-environment fit theory, continuity, and role theories to shed light on the underlying mechanisms through which person-vocation fit impact bridge employment intention. The findings of this study can be used by career counsellors and managers to design more effective actions to retain older workers.

Does Bridge Employment Mitigate or Exacerbate Inequalities Later in Life?

Abstract Most older Americans with career employment change jobs at least once before retiring from the labor market. Much is known about the prevalence and determinants of these bridge jobs, yet relatively little is known about the implications of such job changes—compared to direct exits from a career job—upon economic disparities in later life. In this article, 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 affects nonhousing 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 hold career jobs later in life. That said, we do find some evidence that wealth inequalities grow among the subset of older career workers who transition from career employment to bridge employment at older ages. One policy implication of our article is that it provides evidence that might allay concerns about the potential for disparate financial impacts associated with the gradual retirement process.

Workplace age discrimination: work meaningfulness and bridge employment intentions

PurposeThis paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approachThis briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.FindingsAge discrimination is found to indirectly and negatively relate to older nurses’ bridge employment intentions through work meaningfulness. In addition work meaningfulness is found to have a mediating role in the relationship between age discrimination and bridge employment intentions above and beyond the potential role of affective commitment.Originality/valueThe briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Evolutionary Game Analysis between Local Government and Enterprises on Bridge Employment from the Perspective of Dynamic Incentive and Punishment

The popularization of bridge employment is conducive to the realization of active aging, which requires not only the subjective initiative of retirees but also the active cooperation of local governments and relevant enterprises. This study combined evolutionary game theory with system dynamics to model and simulate the behavior of local government and enterprises on bridge employment, aiming to highlight the importance of government behavior and enterprise actions in the process of active aging and to analyze the effectiveness of different incentive and punishment mechanisms in promoting bridge employment. Results show that the system with dynamic incentive and punishment is easier to keep stable than the system with static incentive and punishment; specifically, the dynamic mechanism with low incentive intensity and high punishment intensity is better than other mechanisms. Finally, this study emphasized the importance of government policy to bridge employment and put forward relevant management implications.

Can Specialized Attention from HR Backfire? The Role of Older Workers’ HR Practices on Retention

Recognizing the potential labor shortage associated with older workers’ imminent labor exit, organizations are beginning to implement older worker-specific HR practices as a strategy to retain this source of human capital. Nevertheless, the impact of these HR practices on older workers remains unclear. Drawing on the instrumental-symbolic framework, this study examines the potential countervailing effects of older worker-specific HR practices on older worker retention via two distinct mechanisms (i.e., POS and stereotype consciousness). Specifically, older worker-specific HR practices have a positive effect on older worker retention because of POS, as well as a negative effect on older worker retention because of stereotype consciousness. Further, I use three types of operationalizations to capture distinct ways in which older workers may intend to exit their organizations (i.e., retirement, bridge employment with a different organization, and turnover). Moreover, I incorporate two moderators as potential boundary conditions of the relationships between older worker-specific HR practices and the two mediating mechanisms. Using 192 sets of employees (1 older worker, 1 HR executive or HR manager, and 1 colleague per organization), I found partial support for the hypothesized countervailing effects of older worker-specific HR practices on retention-related outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Staffing agency: A bridge to working during retirement.

BACKGROUND:The ageing population has initiated a debate about a prolonged working life. There is an interest in finding the pre-retirement predictors of bridge employment and retirement decisions, but the understanding of the experiences of bridge employees is still limited.OBJECTIVES:The aim was to describe the characteristics of the pensioners working for a staffing agency, their motivational aspects, work patterns and types of services they provided.METHODS:This article analyses the results from a Swedish staffing agency’s yearly co-worker questionnaire from December 2017. The response rate was 44% (N = 1741). The design is descriptive, with correlation analyses and construction of typical cases.RESULTS:Most study participants were aged 65–74 years. Sixty-five percent were men, 66% were cohabitating/married, dominating education level was secondary school or higher education (79%). Important incentives for working were the social context and to gain extra income. A majority of the respondents also stated that their work increased their overall well-being. Seventy-eight percent worked 25 hours per month or less, 37% wanted to work more, 3% wanted to work less. Private services dominated with 61%; most common were gardening (43%), trades (33%) and cleaning (31%).CONCLUSIONS:More men than women chose this form of work. While single women need to work out of economic necessity, men, to a larger extent, work for the social context and well-being. The highest work frequency in 2017 (14%) in the population was found for those who retired in 2015, i.e. two years after their retirement year. A majority indicated that the work they were doing was different from earlier in their working life.

Employment expectations: examining the effect of psychological contract fulfillment on bridge employees' personal and work attitudes

PurposeIn this study the authors examine whether bridge employees tend to hold non-standard jobs, and if so, whether non-standard job choice is deliberate. Moreover, the authors examine whether fulfillment of employment expectations affects the personal and work attitudes of bridge employees.Design/methodology/approachThe authors' research and hypotheses are supported and developed through psychological contract theory. The authors collected data from 195 bridge employees, employed in a variety of jobs, through an online survey. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical multiple regression.FindingsThis study suggests that some bridge employees may engage in non-standard employment deliberately. Moreover, we show that fulfillment of perceived obligation by employers (psychological contract) is associated with personal and work attitudes (life satisfaction, job satisfaction, affective commitment, normative commitment and intentions to stay) of bridge employees.Research limitations/implicationsWhile this study supports psychological contract theory as an important framework for understanding bridge employment, sample size, cross-sectional data and a lack of diversity in the sample limit causality, generalizability and data robustness. Future research should strive to replicate and extend the current findings.Practical implicationsThe present study underlines the importance of designing jobs to meet the expectations of bridge employees. Also, it highlights the preference of bridge employees to engage in non-standard employment.Originality/valueThe authors extend bridge employment research by empirically examining the relationship between unmet employment expectations and the personal and work attitudes of bridge employees.