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Pathways to retirement: Are they related to patterns of short- and long-term subjective well-being?
[journal article]
Abstract We examine the association between pathways to retirement and patterns of subjective well-being in Germany. We argue that short-term development of subjective well-being is related to social status changes while long-term development of subjective well-being is related to resources and changes in li... view more
We examine the association between pathways to retirement and patterns of subjective well-being in Germany. We argue that short-term development of subjective well-being is related to social status changes while long-term development of subjective well-being is related to resources and changes in life circumstances. Importantly, we expect that how a person's social status changes and his/her access to resources post-retirement both depend on the person's specific pathway to retirement, resulting in distinct patterns of subjective well-being post-retirement. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we categorized people as retiring from employment, short- or long-term unemployment, labour market inactivity or due to disability. We then used dual-change score models to compare trajectories of life satisfaction ten years before to ten years after the retirement transition. For people retiring from employment, life satisfaction did not change in the short term but developed more positively in the long term. In comparison, people retiring from unemployment or due to disability experienced a short-term increase in life satisfaction but had more negative long-term trajectories of life satisfaction. We found no retirement-related changes in life satisfaction for people retiring from inactivity. The findings suggest that different pathways to retirement are related to distinct patterns of subjective well-being and highlight the importance of late-life employment biographies for quality of life post-retirement.... view less
Keywords
employment history; well-being; retirement age; pensioning; Federal Republic of Germany; retirement; old age; disability; unemployment; satisfaction with life; quality of life
Classification
Gerontology
Free Keywords
transition; pathways to retirement; subjective well-being; intra-cohort inequality; German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEPv30, 1984-2013)
Document language
English
Publication Year
2019
Page/Pages
p. 214-229
Journal
Social Science Research (2019) 77
ISSN
1096-0317
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0