Working After Retirement: Why Do They Do It?

1. Working After Retirement: Why Do They Do It? Sharon K. Kendrick, Ph.D. Melody L. Wollan, Ph.D., PHR

2. What theory has said about retirees going back to work: • What leads a pre-retiree to participate in bridge employment? • More thorough understanding of the mechanisms: • Organizational Commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1993) • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1943) • Personal Goals (Atchley, 1976) • Economic (Gall & Evans, 2000; Glamser, 1981; Gray & Morse, 1980; Lim & Feldman, 2003; McVeigh, 1980) • Social (Binstock, 1998; Davis, 2003; Han & Moen, 1999; Holland & Gottfredson, 1992; Ruhm, 1989)

3. Hypotheses: • Intentions to participate in bridge employment will be positively related to a pre-retiree’s level of: • 1a: affective commitment. • 1b: continuance commitment. • 1c: normative commitment.

4. Hypotheses cont’d: • Intentions to participate in bridge employment will increase when the pre-retiree reports that bridge employment work fulfills a • H2: physiological need. • H3: safety/security need. • H4: social/belongingness need. • H5: esteem need. • H6: self-actualization need.

5. Hypotheses cont’d: • H7a: Intentions to participate in bridge employment will bepositivelyrelated to the extent a pre-retiree isnarrowly engagedin fulfilling the individual hierarchy of personal goals. • H7b: Intentions to participate in bridge employment will be negatively related to the extent a pre-retiree is broadly engaged in fulfilling the individual hierarchy of personal goals.

6. Methodology: • Included public, federal, private, and state workers from government, industry, education, and medical industries • Location of companies in county of over 300,000 situated within urban community in southeastern North Carolina • Overview presented at local SHRM meeting • SHRM HR managers volunteered assistance in contacting employees in their organizations • Web-based, electronic survey • Within a ten-year timeframe of retiring • Employed full- or part-time

7. Methodology cont’d: • IV: Organizational Commitment – seven-point Likert scale adapted from Meyer and Allen (1990) • Ranged from 1 “strongly agree” to 7 “strongly disagree” • Eighteen items to assess OC on three levels: 1) affective, 2) continuance, 3) normative • Coefficient alpha was .893 for AC, .834 for CC, and .872 for NC • Pre-designed survey questions formulated and tested by previous researchers; adapted to project at-hand • DV: 19-item IPBE scale, seven-point Likert scale format • Ranged from 1 “strongly agree” to 7 “strongly disagree” • High score on IPBE indicates lower likelihood to PBE; low score reflects high likelihood to PBE • Coefficient alpha was .827

8. Methodology cont’d: • IV: Personal Goals – 32-item instrument from Dubin (1956) • Used to determine if job and workplace represent principal interests of respondent or if main orientation is more towards world outside work • 20% job-oriented, 49% unfocused, 31% non-job oriented • IV: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – seven-point Likert scale adapted from Michalak (1973) • Ranged from 1 “strongly agree” to 7 “strongly disagree” • Coefficient alpha for overall scale was .912 • Individual coefficient alpha included .726 for PN, .623 for SSN, .572 for SBN, .755 for EN, and .702 for SAN

9. Findings when hypotheses were tested: • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: fulfilling higher-order needs are more important to pre-retirees than fulfillment of lower-level needs when considering working after retirement • Personal Goals: pre-retirees are interested in PBE as long as they are able to reorganize PG (on their terms) and they are flexible/adaptable in shifting order of personal priorities • Of the ten IV hypothesized to be in a relationship with IPBE, all demonstrated significant relationships • Organization Commitment: strong pairing of AC and NC which suggests that identity and loyalty to organization are matters of importance to pre-retirees when considering working after retirement

10. What we think this means: • Blended interaction between situational and dispositional factors • Rationale for PBE relies heavily on what is considered permissible by society’s standards, how work fits into one’s current capabilities, and to what extent it facilitates realignment of activities after retirement • Regardless of type of organizational commitment, a pre-retiree would seek to fulfill deficiency and growth needs while remaining flexible and adaptable • Fulfillment of internal and external needs go hand-in-hand with rearrangement of personal goals

11. What we’d like to see for future research: • Connecting Recruiting Approaches and Career Development to Bridge Retirees • Career counseling for pre-retirees that specifically addresses non-economic concerns • i.e. Past career experience(s) and combining with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs • IPBE could be mediated/moderated by connection between inter-related and IV variables • i.e. Exploration of potential existence of interaction effects between IV and IBPE • Additional testing models on more complex relationships between different (and inter-related) IV and IPBE

12. Comments/Questions?