Gender, Age and Attitudes to Retirement in Mid-Life

Bibliographic Data

ID11199979
AuthorsJay Ginn (University of Surrey), Sara Arber (University of Surrey)
Year1996
Volume16
Issue1
Pages27-55
Publication date1996-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAgeing and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0144-686X • E-ISSN: 1469-1779
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0144686x00003123
OpenAlexW1997004415
LanguageEN
Citations received25
References cited16

British research on exit from the labour market has been mainly concerned with men, but US research shows retirement for women is equally salient. Gender differences in attitudes to employment and reasons for early exit are relevant to employment and pension policy. In this paper, we use data from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative survey to examine gender differences in attitudes to employment among over 2,500 British women and men aged 40 to 59. A key concern was to discover whether the decline in mid-life women's employment through their fifties could be explained by a change in attitudes with age, or was more likely to be due to age-related barriers in the labour market. Analysis shows that among mid-life people who were not employed, financial considerations were the predominant influence on men's job-seeking whereas for women psychosocial aspects of having a job were also important. Mid-life women showed no decline in their motivation towards employment with age, indicating that women's early exit cannot be explained by reduced desire for employment with age. However, there was evidence of perceived age barriers to employment or promotion which were likely to have affected behaviour and attitudes

Demographic economics · Economics · Pension · Political science · Promotion (chess) · Psychosocial · Employment and Welfare Studies · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality · Medicine · Psychology · Retirement, Disability, and Employment · Gerontology