Kène Henkens

Adjustment to and Satisfaction With Retirement : Two of a Kind?

Multiactor panel data on 778 Dutch employees were used to examine adjustment to and satisfaction with retirement. Regression analyses revealed that adjustment and satisfaction are related, but not identical. Adjustment problems arise from preretirement anxiety about the social consequences of retirement and from a lack of control over the decision. Retirement satisfaction is primarily related to the individuals access to key resources: finances, health, and the marital relationship. The study shows that the retirement transition is multidimensional. The transition involves two developmental challenges: adjustment to the loss of the work role and the social ties of work, and the development of a satisfactory postretirement lifestyle. Making a distinction between these two aspects of the retirement experience is important for a better understanding of the psychological process following retirement.

Retirement adjustment: A review of theoretical and empirical advancements.

In this article, we review both theoretical and empirical advancements in retirement adjustment research. After reviewing and integrating current theories about retirement adjustment, we propose a resource-based dynamic perspective to apply to the understanding of retirement adjustment. We then review empirical findings that are associated with the key research questions in this literature: (a) What is the general impact of retirement on the individual? and (b) What are the factors that influence retirement adjustment quality? We also highlight important future research directions that may be fruitful for psychologists to pursue in this area.

Managing an aging workforce and a tight labor market: views held by Dutch employers

Despite the strong growth in employment of the past years, the Dutch labor market faces a number of persistent problems. One such problem is the large number of people on disability benefits. Another problem is the low labor force participation of women, not so much in terms of people, but in terms of hours worked (Henkens et al. 2002). And, despite an increase since the mid-1990s, the labor force participation of people over 50 is also much lower than the European average (OECD 1996). These low labor force participation rates should be seen against the backdrop of a strong increase in labor demand in recent years. In many sectors of the Dutch economy, this has led to tightness in the labor market (CPB 2000). Given that the population of the Netherlands is aging, new imbalances are looming on the horizon. Structural changes need to be implemented to pay for the growing number of pensioners. [....]

Signals in Science - on the Importance of Signaling in Gaining Attention in Science

Which signals are important in gaining attention in science? For a group of 1,371 scientific articles published in 17 demography journals in the years 1990-1992 we track their influence and discern which signals are important in receiving citations. Three types of signals are examined: the author’s reputation (as producer of the idea), the journal (as the broker of the idea), and the state of uncitedness (as an indication of the assessment by the scientific community of an idea). The empirical analysis points out that, first, the reputation of journals plays an overriding role in gaining attention in science. Second, in contrast to common wisdom, the state of uncitedness does not affect the future probability of being cited. And third, the reputation of a journal may help to get late recognition (so-called ‘sleeping beauties’) as well as generate so-called ‘flash-in-the-pans’: immediately noted articles but apparently not very influential in the long run.

Intended and unintended consequences of a publish-or-perish culture: A worldwide survey

How does publication pressure in modern-day universities affect the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in science? By using a worldwide survey among demographers in developed and developing countries, the authors show that the large majority perceive the publication pressure as high, but more so in Anglo-Saxon countries and to a lesser extent in Western Europe. However, scholars see both the pros (upward mobility) and cons (excessive publication and uncitedness, neglect of policy issues, etc.) of the so-called publish-or-perish culture. By measuring behavior in terms of reading and publishing, and perceived extrinsic rewards and stated intrinsic rewards of practicing science, it turns out that publication pressure negatively affects the orientation of demographers towards policy and knowledge sharing. There are no signs that the pressure affects reading and publishing outside the core discipline.

Early retirement reform: Can it work? Will it work?

Early retirement from the labour force has become standard practice for most employees in the industrialised world. However, as a result of the rising costs of early-retirement schemes, curbing the outflow of older workers from the labour force has become a central government policy objective. Early-retirement reforms under which benefits are financed on a more actuarially neutral basis are currently being implemented in The Netherlands. At present it is not clear how older workers will react to these policy reforms. In this article we examine the extent to which (Dutch) older workers are inclined to change their retirement intentions in response to new early-retirement arrangements. On the basis of a labour market and a population survey we examine retirement intentions under alternative early-retirement policies. The overall conclusion is that the retirement reform may lead to a substantial delay of the retirement date, but that in practice factors other than financial incentives are powerfully at work. This is also reflected in the long-run early-retirement trend. This trend presents demographers and economists with a puzzle, because while a break can be identified in the time series, it set in before the early-retirement reforms were put into practice.

Mapping the Minds of Retirement Planners

This study explored the psychological mechanisms that underlie the retirement planning and saving tendencies of Dutch and American workers. Participants were 988 Dutch and 429 Americans, 25 to 64 years of age. Analyses were designed to (a) examine the extent to which structural variables were related to planning tendencies and (b) develop culture-specific path analysis models to identify the mechanisms that underlie perceived financial preparedness for retirement. Findings revealed striking differences across countries not only among structural variables predictive of key psychological and retirement planning constructs, but also in the robustness of the path models. These findings suggest policy analysts should take into account both individual and cultural differences in the psychological predispositions of workers when considering pension reforms that stress individual responsibility for planning and saving.

Employers’ attitudes and actions towards the extension of working lives in Europe

Purpose - Although policymakers have put great efforts into the promotion of older workers’ labour force participation, quantitative empirical knowledge about employers’ views towards extension of working lives is limited. The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of employers’ attitudes and actions towards extension of working lives, by examining recruitment and retention behaviour towards older workers, employers’ views on the consequences of an ageing workforce, organisational policies, and what governments can do to extend working lives. Design/methodology/approach - The authors analyse surveys administered to employers in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK in 2009. Findings - It is found that a minority of employers have applied measures to recruit or retain older workers, and employers rather retain than hire older workers. A considerable share of employers, albeit to different degrees per country, associate the ageing of their staff with a growing gap between labour costs and productivity. Employers expecting a larger gap do not apply more organisational measures to either increase productivity or adjust the cost-productivity balance. Employers may think the cost-productivity issue is partly for governments to solve; employers expecting a larger cost-productivity gap consider wage subsidies to be an effective measure to extend working lives. Originality/value - The paper addresses the employers’ perspective, one that is often neglected compared to attitudes and behaviour of older workers themselves and research on institutional arrangements. This paper is also among the first to report on employers’ policies and practices from a cross-national perspective.

The Impact of Midlife Educational, Work, Health, and Family Experiences on Men’s Early Retirement

OBJECTIVES In empirical studies on predictors of retirement, midlife experiences have often remained implicit or been neglected. This study aims to improve our understanding of retirement by examining the impact of midlife educational, work, health, and family experiences on early retirement intentions and behavior. We distinguish theoretically and empirically between financial and nonfinancial preretirement factors through which midlife experiences could affect retirement. METHODS Using panel data of 1,229 Dutch male older workers, we estimated linear regression models to explain retirement intentions and logistic regression models to explain retirement behavior. RESULTS Midlife experiences in all studied life spheres are related to retirement intentions. Educational investments, job changes, late transitions into parenthood, and late divorces are associated with weaker intentions to retire early. Midlife health problems are related to stronger early retirement intentions. For midlife work and family experiences, the relationships are (partly) mediated by the preretirement financial opportunity structure. In the educational, work, and health spheres, the preretirement nonfinancial situation has a mediating effect. Only some of the predictors of retirement intentions also predicted retirement behavior. DISCUSSION Given the destandardization of life courses, information on distal life experiences might become even more important toward understanding retirement in the future.

Effects of retirement voluntariness on changes in smoking, drinking and physical activity among Dutch older workers.

BACKGROUND Although several studies have investigated the association of health behaviors with retirement, none has examined this relationship in the context of retirement voluntariness. METHODS Using data from the 2001 and 2007 waves of a panel study of retirement in the Netherlands, we used multinomial logistic regression models to investigate the impact of retirement voluntariness on changes in smoking, alcohol use, and physical activity. Participants included 1604 individuals, aged 50-64 years, who were employed in 2001. RESULTS During the 6-year follow-up, 884 (55%) sample members retired: 676 (42%) perceived their retirement as voluntary and 208 (13%) perceived their retirement as involuntary. Results of multinomial logistic analyses indicated that, relative to non-retired participants (n = 720), the voluntarily retired had higher risk of increased physical activity [relative risk ratio (RR) = 2.90, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.19-3.84] and lower risk of decreased physical activity (RR = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.22-0.56). The involuntarily retired had both higher risk of increased smoking (RR = 3.68, 95% CI: 1.45-9.30) and lower risk of decreased smoking (RR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.25-0.99), lower risk of decreased alcohol use (RR = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.29-0.73), and both higher risk of increased physical activity (RR = 2.14, 95% CI: 1.47-3.13) and lower risk of decreased physical activity (RR = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.23-0.92). CONCLUSION Accounting for the perceived voluntariness of retirement is essential to obtaining a clear assessment of the behavioral effects of this type of labor force departure.