David J Ekerdt
Biographic Data
| ID | 222693 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David J Ekerdt |
| GIVEN NAMES | David J |
| FAMILY NAME | Ekerdt |
| SIGNATURE | EKERDT D J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kansas |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9155-4655 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 154 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Retirement preparedness: A study of gender, marital status, and motivation factors by using a theory of planned behavior model
Although working men and women share common retirement concerns, women encounter unique challenges in securing their retirement. These challenges arise from factors such as part-time work, intermittent work histories, and potential wealth disparities. Marital status also exerts a profound influence on retirement decisions. Marital status significantly impacts their financial security as they approach retirement. This study investigates the intric…
Economic inequality in later life and imagination of the future
The personal futures of older adults are continually in mind, motivating goals, desires and plans. People approach the near and long term with differing agentic traits and dispositions, and they face forward, as well, from differing standpoints according to socio-economic position. This is a study of how persons who are economically privileged diverge in their future thought from persons of modest means, asking how income level qualifies the capa…
The Fourth Age in Prospect
The bleak but formidable reputation of the fourth age impinges on those living in the third. The consonant expression of fourth-age features among older adults on 3 continents supports Gilleard and Higgs's claim that the fourth-age imaginary "contains a universal ontological quality" owing to human corporeality and the senescence to which it is subject. Fourth-age studies that document the lived experience of frailty and dependence have the poten…
What will you do with all that time? Changes in leisure activities after retirement are determined by age-related self-views and preparation
Retirement is a normative life transition that liberates the individual from the external obligations of employment, being a catalyzer of leisure activity engagement. However, the individual's motivations to engage in leisure activities in the time that is gained after retirement may depend on their future self-views (i.e., views of their own ageing) as well as on their levels of preparation for age-related changes. In this study, therefore, we a…
The dog that didn't bark: The challenge of cross-cultural qualitative research on aging
Consumption & Generational Change: The Rise of Consumer Lifestyles
Consumption and Generational Change: The Rise of Consumer Lifestyles
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on detailed empirical work to address key questions that arise from the interplay between the rise of mass consumption, increasing individualization, and generational fracture. It provides a collective contribution, from a diversity of perspectives, to the debates surrounding generational change in contemporary consumer s…
Is longevity a value for older adults
The task of time in retirement
Retirees' encounter with time has long interested social scientists, especially the negotiation of such an open-ended status. Pursuing theoretical suggestions that daily activities anchor a narrative of self-identity, this project examined the coherence of retirees' representations of their time use. Information is drawn from interviews with 30 retirees in the Midwestern United States of America who were invited to discuss their daily lives and a…
Possession divestment by sales in later life
The Material Convoy After Age 50
Further research on this age pattern might consider housing, the construction of the self, and social networks as explanations for retention. Inertia toward the material convoy maintains the availability and comfort of things, but it may also lead to a predicament wherein the collection becomes a worry for self and others
Safe passage of goods and self during residential relocation in later life
Techniques of possession research among older people tend to accentuate their prizing of things and their use of special dispositions to achieve the protection or ‘safe passage’ of things as they transfer to a new owner. Such efforts on behalf of possessions may also be undertaken to perpetuate the self. To study the care of things and self in a wider context, we examined older people's repertoire of disposition strategies during episodes of hous…
Age and the cultivation of place
Confronting the Material Convoy in Later Life
We adapt a metaphor from life course studies to designate the whole of one's possessions, across time, as a convoy of material support. This dynamic collection of things supports daily life and the self, but it can also present difficulty in later life. To alleviate the purported burdens of the material convoy, a discourse has arisen that urges elders and their family members to reduce the volume of possessions. An analysis of 11 such possession …
Frontiers of Research on Work and Retirement
The shifting boundary between work and retirement and the always-emergent features of retirement practice create a wide opportunity for scholarship and research. After an overview of the scope of retirement research, this article articulates 4 areas that deserve special attention in the present historical circumstance: studies of the form and timing of retirement exits, the labor market for older workers, the quality of pensions, and the experien…
Older Adults’ Expectations to Move: Do They Predict Actual Community-Based or Nursing Facility Moves Within 2 Years
Results support the residential decision process as a dynamic one based on the cumulative effect of factors from an ecological model. Findings will inform policy makers and practitioners as they work to support older adults' preferences to remain living in their homes
Measurement of Late-Life Residential Relocation: Why Are Rates for Such a Manifest Event So Varied
We translate the findings into concrete suggestions for investigators. The article provides the background needed to identify the research design best suited to the end purpose of studies on residential relocation (e.g., inform economic policy, understand the individual's aging experience, plan for long-term-care systems). These methodological issues are also relevant to other areas of investigation in which relocation influences the variables be…
Pension Puzzles: Social Security and the Great Debate
Family things: Attending the household disbandment of older adults
Consumption and Meanings of Age
Household Disbandment in Later Life
Disbandment is an acute episode of a more general, lifelong process of possession management. It is an encounter with things that are meaningful to the self, but as it unfolds, it also makes new meaning for things
Eddies in the Stream
Uncertainty is an authentic, meaningful stance toward retirement that theory and research design should not ignore. Just as actual transitions to retirement can be ambiguous or blurred, the expectation of retirement, as well, can be untidy
The Role of Job-Related Rewards in Retirement Planning
The authors used data from the first wave of the Health and Retirement Study ( F. Juster and R. Suzman 1995) to evaluate whether certain job-related gratifications might reduce retirement planning. Three definitions of retirement planning were evaluated and then regressed separately on a set of variables that included 3 types of job-related satisfactions (intrinsic gratification, positive social relations, and ascendance in the workplace) and 7 c…
Selling retirement in financial planning advertisements
Variations in Funeral-Related Costs of Older Adults and the Role of Preneed Funeral Contracts and Type of Disposition
Based on this 1995 study of 163 families in the Kansas City area who experienced the death of a loved one age 50+ in the previous months, we found that combined funeral and cemetery-related costs ranged from $195 to over $14,000. We also report ranges in costs for caskets, outer burial containers, cemetery expenses, and funeral home costs. Total final costs were regressed on two independent variables, 1) presence of a preneed funeral home contrac…
On defining persons as retired
Household Disbandment in Later Life
Disbandment is an acute episode of a more general, lifelong process of possession management. It is an encounter with things that are meaningful to the self, but as it unfolds, it also makes new meaning for things
Measurement of Late-Life Residential Relocation: Why Are Rates for Such a Manifest Event So Varied
We translate the findings into concrete suggestions for investigators. The article provides the background needed to identify the research design best suited to the end purpose of studies on residential relocation (e.g., inform economic policy, understand the individual's aging experience, plan for long-term-care systems). These methodological issues are also relevant to other areas of investigation in which relocation influences the variables be…
Family things: Attending the household disbandment of older adults
Confronting the Material Convoy in Later Life
We adapt a metaphor from life course studies to designate the whole of one's possessions, across time, as a convoy of material support. This dynamic collection of things supports daily life and the self, but it can also present difficulty in later life. To alleviate the purported burdens of the material convoy, a discourse has arisen that urges elders and their family members to reduce the volume of possessions. An analysis of 11 such possession …
Eddies in the Stream
Uncertainty is an authentic, meaningful stance toward retirement that theory and research design should not ignore. Just as actual transitions to retirement can be ambiguous or blurred, the expectation of retirement, as well, can be untidy
The Role of Job-Related Rewards in Retirement Planning
The authors used data from the first wave of the Health and Retirement Study ( F. Juster and R. Suzman 1995) to evaluate whether certain job-related gratifications might reduce retirement planning. Three definitions of retirement planning were evaluated and then regressed separately on a set of variables that included 3 types of job-related satisfactions (intrinsic gratification, positive social relations, and ascendance in the workplace) and 7 c…
The Material Convoy After Age 50
Further research on this age pattern might consider housing, the construction of the self, and social networks as explanations for retention. Inertia toward the material convoy maintains the availability and comfort of things, but it may also lead to a predicament wherein the collection becomes a worry for self and others
Safe passage of goods and self during residential relocation in later life
Techniques of possession research among older people tend to accentuate their prizing of things and their use of special dispositions to achieve the protection or ‘safe passage’ of things as they transfer to a new owner. Such efforts on behalf of possessions may also be undertaken to perpetuate the self. To study the care of things and self in a wider context, we examined older people's repertoire of disposition strategies during episodes of hous…
The task of time in retirement
Retirees' encounter with time has long interested social scientists, especially the negotiation of such an open-ended status. Pursuing theoretical suggestions that daily activities anchor a narrative of self-identity, this project examined the coherence of retirees' representations of their time use. Information is drawn from interviews with 30 retirees in the Midwestern United States of America who were invited to discuss their daily lives and a…
Selling retirement in financial planning advertisements
Entitlements, Generational Equity, and Public-Opinion Manipulation in Kansas City
To sow public doubts about Social Security and other federal old-age programs, one would need to erode their bases of support. This case study describes a year-long editorial campaign by The Kansas City Star that argued repeatedly for retrenchment of federal old-age programs and essentially promoted the policy agenda of the Concord Coalition. Generational inequity was a strong series theme. Readers, especially young people, were recruited to part…
The effect of retirement on physical health
This prospective study compared pre- to post-retirement changes in physical health among male retirees with changes among age peers who continued to work. The 229 retirees and 409 workers aged 55-73 at follow-up were all participants in the Veterans Administration Normative Aging Study. Physical health at baseline and follow-up (three to four years apart) was rated on a four-point scale according to the findings of medical examinations. Although …
Older Adults’ Expectations to Move: Do They Predict Actual Community-Based or Nursing Facility Moves Within 2 Years
Results support the residential decision process as a dynamic one based on the cumulative effect of factors from an ecological model. Findings will inform policy makers and practitioners as they work to support older adults' preferences to remain living in their homes
Is longevity a value for older adults
Possession divestment by sales in later life
Profiling Plans for Retirement
Actual decision making for retirement is largely inaccessible to investigation, yet research can focus on plans as a window into the preretirement process. This article proposes a construct that profiles five generic types of retirement plans, including plans to retire completely, change jobs, never retire, and uncertainty about retirement. The heuristic value of the construct lies in its recognition of the heterogeneity of retirement intentions.…
Age and the cultivation of place
The Fourth Age in Prospect
The bleak but formidable reputation of the fourth age impinges on those living in the third. The consonant expression of fourth-age features among older adults on 3 continents supports Gilleard and Higgs's claim that the fourth-age imaginary "contains a universal ontological quality" owing to human corporeality and the senescence to which it is subject. Fourth-age studies that document the lived experience of frailty and dependence have the poten…
The dog that didn't bark: The challenge of cross-cultural qualitative research on aging
Longitudinal change in preferred age of retirement
It has been observed that among workers there is an inverse relationship between the proximity of retirement and its attractiveness. This study analysed the longitudinal change, over the ten years between two sampling times T 1 and T 2 , in preferred retirement age for a series of age cohorts. The sample included 1458 males aged 35–81 at T 2 . Cohort means at T 1 and T 2 and an additional residual change score both showed a similar trend in the d…
The effect of retirement on physical health
This prospective study compared pre- to post-retirement changes in physical health among male retirees with changes among age peers who continued to work. The 229 retirees and 409 workers aged 55-73 at follow-up were all participants in the Veterans Administration Normative Aging Study. Physical health at baseline and follow-up (three to four years apart) was rated on a four-point scale according to the findings of medical examinations. Although …
The Busy Ethic: Moral Continuity Between Work and Retirement
This paper suggests that retirement is legitimated on a day-to-day basis in part by an ethic that esteems leisure that is earnest, active, and occupied. This busy ethic, named for the emphasis people place on keeping busy in retirement, endorses conduct that is consistent with the abstract ideals of the work ethic. The busy ethic justifies the leisure of retirement, defends retired people against judgments of senescence, and gives definition to t…
An archive of findings on aging
On defining persons as retired
Families and Retirement
Who Cares for the Elderly? Public Policy and the Experiences of Adult Daughters
Profiling Plans for Retirement
Actual decision making for retirement is largely inaccessible to investigation, yet research can focus on plans as a window into the preretirement process. This article proposes a construct that profiles five generic types of retirement plans, including plans to retire completely, change jobs, never retire, and uncertainty about retirement. The heuristic value of the construct lies in its recognition of the heterogeneity of retirement intentions.…
Entitlements, Generational Equity, and Public-Opinion Manipulation in Kansas City
To sow public doubts about Social Security and other federal old-age programs, one would need to erode their bases of support. This case study describes a year-long editorial campaign by The Kansas City Star that argued repeatedly for retrenchment of federal old-age programs and essentially promoted the policy agenda of the Concord Coalition. Generational inequity was a strong series theme. Readers, especially young people, were recruited to part…
Variations in Funeral-Related Costs of Older Adults and the Role of Preneed Funeral Contracts and Type of Disposition
Based on this 1995 study of 163 families in the Kansas City area who experienced the death of a loved one age 50+ in the previous months, we found that combined funeral and cemetery-related costs ranged from $195 to over $14,000. We also report ranges in costs for caskets, outer burial containers, cemetery expenses, and funeral home costs. Total final costs were regressed on two independent variables, 1) presence of a preneed funeral home contrac…
Eddies in the Stream
Uncertainty is an authentic, meaningful stance toward retirement that theory and research design should not ignore. Just as actual transitions to retirement can be ambiguous or blurred, the expectation of retirement, as well, can be untidy
The Role of Job-Related Rewards in Retirement Planning
The authors used data from the first wave of the Health and Retirement Study ( F. Juster and R. Suzman 1995) to evaluate whether certain job-related gratifications might reduce retirement planning. Three definitions of retirement planning were evaluated and then regressed separately on a set of variables that included 3 types of job-related satisfactions (intrinsic gratification, positive social relations, and ascendance in the workplace) and 7 c…
Selling retirement in financial planning advertisements
Consumption and Meanings of Age
Household Disbandment in Later Life
Disbandment is an acute episode of a more general, lifelong process of possession management. It is an encounter with things that are meaningful to the self, but as it unfolds, it also makes new meaning for things
Family things: Attending the household disbandment of older adults
Measurement of Late-Life Residential Relocation: Why Are Rates for Such a Manifest Event So Varied
We translate the findings into concrete suggestions for investigators. The article provides the background needed to identify the research design best suited to the end purpose of studies on residential relocation (e.g., inform economic policy, understand the individual's aging experience, plan for long-term-care systems). These methodological issues are also relevant to other areas of investigation in which relocation influences the variables be…
Pension Puzzles: Social Security and the Great Debate
Frontiers of Research on Work and Retirement
The shifting boundary between work and retirement and the always-emergent features of retirement practice create a wide opportunity for scholarship and research. After an overview of the scope of retirement research, this article articulates 4 areas that deserve special attention in the present historical circumstance: studies of the form and timing of retirement exits, the labor market for older workers, the quality of pensions, and the experien…
Older Adults’ Expectations to Move: Do They Predict Actual Community-Based or Nursing Facility Moves Within 2 Years
Results support the residential decision process as a dynamic one based on the cumulative effect of factors from an ecological model. Findings will inform policy makers and practitioners as they work to support older adults' preferences to remain living in their homes
Age and the cultivation of place
Confronting the Material Convoy in Later Life
We adapt a metaphor from life course studies to designate the whole of one's possessions, across time, as a convoy of material support. This dynamic collection of things supports daily life and the self, but it can also present difficulty in later life. To alleviate the purported burdens of the material convoy, a discourse has arisen that urges elders and their family members to reduce the volume of possessions. An analysis of 11 such possession …
Safe passage of goods and self during residential relocation in later life
Techniques of possession research among older people tend to accentuate their prizing of things and their use of special dispositions to achieve the protection or ‘safe passage’ of things as they transfer to a new owner. Such efforts on behalf of possessions may also be undertaken to perpetuate the self. To study the care of things and self in a wider context, we examined older people's repertoire of disposition strategies during episodes of hous…
The Material Convoy After Age 50
Further research on this age pattern might consider housing, the construction of the self, and social networks as explanations for retention. Inertia toward the material convoy maintains the availability and comfort of things, but it may also lead to a predicament wherein the collection becomes a worry for self and others
Possession divestment by sales in later life
Psychology (23 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Retirement, Disability, and Employment (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · Medicine (14 works) · Gerontology (13 works) · Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Aging and Gerontology Research (9 works) · Business (9 works)