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COPYRIGHT 2000 JAI Press, Inc.
INTRODUCTION
Issues surrounding early retirement have gained public prominence in the last decades of the twentieth century. It has become almost axiomatic that concomitant with the increasing globalization of world market economies, through such international trade agreements as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs), and EU (European Union), has come demands for increased productivity and competitiveness at national and corporate levels. This has led, in turn, to a range of economic and labor policies in both the private and public sectors of most developed countries to reduce the costs of production, including various strategies for reducing the costs of labor. One of these strategies has been the use of "early retirement" incentive programs to induce older workers to leave the workplace before the "usual" age of retirement, which in most Western countries has been set by public policy as the age of eligibility for public pension plan benefits (e.g., in Canada, this has been set at age 65). As the post-World War II "baby boom" bulge, which currently dominates the workforce, moves into its 50s, it is predicted that an increasing number of older workers will leave the paid labor force before this "normal" retirement age (Cliff 1991; Jackson and Taylor 1994; Marshall 1995). It is important, therefore, that we understand not only the social, political, and economic implications of this phenomenon, but also its personal meaning for individuals.
Although early retirement has received more research attention since the early 1980s, it is a phenomenon that was already being investigated during the 1950s and 1960s (Minister of Labour and National Service 1954; Palmore 1964; Pollman 1971). McGoldrick and Cooper (1990) provide an excellent overview of the emergence of early retirement as a social phenomenon, as well as a review of the major research themes that have been explored. Research on early retirement can be considered to fall into two major categories: the social psychological literature, which examines individual factors related to the decision to retire early as well as subsequent life satisfaction (e.g., see Cliff 1991; Knesek 1992; Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996; Palmore, Fillenbaum, and George 1984) and the political economy literature, which analyses early retirement as a historically contingent labor management strategy occurring in particular social, economic, and political contexts (e.g., see Guillemard and Rein 1993; Jackson and Taylor 1994; Kohli et al. 1991; Walker 1982).
A third category of emerging research takes a life-course perspective and looks at the life trajectories of people who take early retirement from their primary source of employment (e.g., see Cliff 1991; Hanks 1990; Mutchler et al. 1997). This stream of research recognizes that the overall picture of work and retirement is changing dramatically from what has been thought of as the norm, namely, the institutionalization of retirement from the paid labor force at a certain chronological age accompanied by access to public old-age pension benefits. This norm is being replaced by "a diversity of pathways out of the labor force," and consistent with a life-course perspective, a major focus of this research stream is "to examine and understand the diversity in the character of [these] pathways, as well as of their component events and sequences" (Mutchler et al. 1997:S4).
The research focusing on reasons for early retirement has tended to frame early retirement as a personal decision. Emerging from this literature are various ways of explaining the early retirement decision, including the "health versus wealth" debate (e.g., Bazzoli 1985; Knesek 1992; McDonald and Wanner 1990; Palmore, Fillenbaum, and George 1984; Sammartino 1979); "push" (disincentives to continue working) and "pull" (incentives to retire) factors (e.g., Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996); and the effects of "voluntary" versus "involuntary" early retirement (e.g., Cliff 1991). Although the social context in which this personal decision is made is considered, it is most often in terms of the social norms around work and retirement (Knesek 1992; Mutchler et al. 1997), with the emphasis on an individual or micro level of analysis. Within this research stream, however, there is a move to examine a much wider range of factors involved in the early retirement decision (Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996; McGoldrick and Cooper 1990), as well as a growing awareness of "the importance of considering the broader context in which a decision is made" (Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996:181).
The political economy research on early retirement, on the other hand, focuses on early retirement as a social event in the context of overall labor force and macroeconomic trends (Guillemard and Rein 1993; Walker 1985). Hanks (1990:425) characterizes these trends in the following way:
World market conditions in the mid-1980s led many corporate managers to examine new mechanisms for cost reduction, including voluntary separation plans. Workers nearing retirement age were identified as a segment of the work force appropriate for voluntary separation programs.... This strategy was more than a response to an ebb in the business cycle; it was an indicator of major change in labor management relations.
From this perspective, early retirement, like retirement itself, is viewed as a product of certain structural arrangements within society. Although characteristics of the individual (gender, class, race, occupational group) are considered in this research stream, the emphasis is on a structural or macro level of analysis. For example, in terms of the "voluntariness" of the early retirement decision, Walker (1982:65) pointed out early on, that "`voluntary' early retirement for some people may reflect social and psychological influences, as well as the arduous or alienating conditions of work."
Research in the political economy stream takes issue with the individual focus of much of the earlier sociology of retirement literature, claiming that "by focusing on the factors underlying individuals' adjustments to retirement and levels of satisfaction, sociologists [have] tended to overlook changes in the transitions to retirement and the reasons for them" (Guillemard and Rein 1993:471). These changes and the reasons for them are seen to be primarily changes in the structural arrangements of the welfare state that determine work and retirement patterns. Some researchers in this tradition have challenged the use of the term "retirement" as an adequate descriptor of this particular form of withdrawal from the paid labor force. Arguing that "in developed industrial societies, the major contemporary change in retirement has been the early definitive withdrawal from the labor market of masses of older wage-earners before the age of admission into public old-age pensions systems"--the usual social marker of retirement--Guillemard and Rein (1993:472) suggest the term "early exit" as a more appropriate label for this phenomenon.
With some exceptions (e.g., Hanks 1990; Cliff 1991), the two major streams of research into early retirement (social psychological and political economy) have both relied primarily on the use of quantitative data: medium and large-scale survey questionnaires or telephone interviews in the case of the former (e.g., McGoldrick and Cooper 1990; Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996); and large national/international work and retirement databases in the case of the latter (e.g., Kohli 1991). What is needed is research that has the potential to link micro and macro factors. More specifically, what is needed is qualitative research with a phenomenological focus that examines how individuals frame their decision to take early retirement in terms of the larger context in which they are making...
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