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Population Retirement Patterns

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International Handbook of Population Aging

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Population ((IHOP,volume 1))

Demographic interest in occupational retirement has two bases. One is retirement’s role in the renewal and repopulation of groups and social institutions. Retirement, while occasioned by aging, is not a necessary societal practice and it only became commonly available to workers during the 20th century. Yet it has proven useful in arranging and managing orderly succession within firms, organizations and labor markets, thus contributing to their continuity as the young replace the old. In addition to managing turnover, retirement is also of demographic interest because it segments the life course. In contemporary practice, withdrawal from work typically occurs at ages far in advance of disability and death. For example, life expectancy exceeds the average age of retirement in European nations by about 15–20 years (Table 21.1), which is also comparable to the experience in Japan and the United States. As a consequence, this pattern opens up a new stage of the life course between employment and death, making a population segment available for age-specific migration, economic behavior, political activity and lifestyles that are potentially discontinuous with the major adult roles of work and family.

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  1. Department of Sociology Gerontology Center, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Ave., Lawrence, KS, USA

    David J. Ekerdt

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina Hamilton Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210, CB 3210, USA

    Peter Uhlenberg

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Ekerdt, D.J. (2009). Population Retirement Patterns. In: Uhlenberg, P. (eds) International Handbook of Population Aging. International Handbooks of Population, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8356-3_21

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