Influencing factors of post-retirement work: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

This systematic literature review aimed to synthesise the studies conducted between 2008 and 2018 on the different influencing factors of post-retirement work. We followed the methodological suggestions proposed by [Petticrew, M., & Roberts, H. (2006). Systematic reviews in the social sciences: A practical guide. John Wiley & Sons] for the development of a systematic review in the Social Sciences. Seven electronic databases were searched and a total of 32 studies were included. We differentiated between the following categories of influencing factors of post-retirement work: Socio-demographic, implicit, work-related, and life-related factors. On the one hand, our results revealed that studies on the socio-demographic and life-related factors presented inconsistent, inconclusive, or limited levels of evidence on how they influence post-retirement work across countries. On the other hand, the implicit and work-related factors showed more consistent levels of evidence regarding their influencing effects. Thus, this study provides further insight into which multidimensional factors are most likely to increase older workers’ willingness towards engaging in post-retirement work.

KEYWORDS:

• Literature review
• older workers
• labour market
• later-life working
• post-retirement work

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Milda Galkutė graduated in Social Work from the University of Zaragoza (Spain) and a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management from the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). She is currently pursuing her PhD in Sociology. Her research interests focus on the sociology of work, social gerontology, and gendered life course perspectives.

M.Soledad Herrera has a PhD in Sociology and a Master’s degree in Social Gerontology. She is an associate professor at the Department of Sociology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her research areas are social gerontology, quality of life, population and family studies, measurements, and quantitative methods. Dr. Herrera is a member of the core group of the Latin American Network of Research on Ageing of the Oxford Institute of Ageing (LARNA).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica [grant number 21180597]; Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico [grant number 1171071].