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Bridge Employment: Conceptualizations and New Directions for Future Research

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Aging Workers and the Employee-Employer Relationship

Abstract

Today, retirement is not a one-time permanent exit from employment anymore. A majority of older adults retire gradually by engaging in bridge employment which is the labor force participation status in-between career employment and complete work withdrawal. This chapter focuses on the theoretical conceptualizations of bridge employment from different perspectives (i.e., decision making, career development, adjustment process, and Human Resource Management). It also introduces a range of criteria to distinguish different forms of bridge employment (i.e., working field, organization/employer, time, and motive). We argue that bridge employment can be better studied and understood based on a careful specification of its conceptual meanings and operationalization forms. Finally, this chapter discusses future directions of research on bridge employment.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We do not review individual theories applied to bridge employment literature in this chapter because these theories overlap considerably with theories applied to retirement research in general. Interested readers may read Wang and Shultz (2010) for a comprehensive review.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Yujie Zhan

  2. Human Resource Research Center, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Mo Wang

Authors
  1. Yujie Zhan
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  2. Mo Wang
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Correspondence to Yujie Zhan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom

    P. Matthijs Bal

  2. Department of Human Resource Studies, University of Tilburg, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Dorien T.A.M. Kooij

  3. H. John Heinz III College, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Denise M. Rousseau

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Zhan, Y., Wang, M. (2015). Bridge Employment: Conceptualizations and New Directions for Future Research. In: Bal, P., Kooij, D., Rousseau, D. (eds) Aging Workers and the Employee-Employer Relationship. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08007-9_12

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