Evidence for a Preretirement Process Among Older Male Workers

As part of a preretirement role-exit process, older workers could be expected to reinterpret their situations and report less favorable job attitudes as they approach retirement. Using 4-wave, 9-year (1978–1987) panel data on 1,365 nonretired male workers aged 50-69, attitudes about job tension and fatigue were examined along the dimension of self-reported proximity (time-left) to retirement. Results from pooled time-series analysis showed that men evaluated their jobs as more burdensome when drawing closer to a fixed age for retirement, regardless of age and other factors. This is evidence for a preretirement dynamic, and it encourages the notion that time-left at work organizes the experience of older workers.