A Longitudinal Study of Work after Retirement: Examining Predictors of Bridge Employment, Continued Career Employment, and Retirement

Older employees are increasingly accepting bridge employment, which occurs when older workers take employment for pay after they retire from their main career. This study examined predictors of workers' decisions to engage in bridge employment versus full retirement and career employment. A national sample of 482 older people in the United States was surveyed regarding various work-related and nonwork related predictors of retirement decisions, and their retirement status was measured 5 years later. In bivariate analyses, both work-related variables (career goal achievement and experienced pressure to retire) and nonwork-related variables (psychological distress and traditional gender role orientation) predicted taking bridge employment, but in multinomial logistic regression, only nonwork variables had unique effects. Few predictors differentiated the bridge employed and fully retired groups. Nonwork variables were salient in making the decision to retire, and bridge employment may be conceptually more similar to full retirement than to career employment.