Aging & Social Change: Thirteenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

In recent years, work exit has come to be seen less as a single transition from full-time employment to full-time retirement – and more as a complex and individual process. In Norway, a pension reform from 2011 designed to encourage later exits, includes aspects that are also likely to stimulate further variations in the retirement process. In this paper we use a combination of survey- and register data to map out distinct types of work exits and study their distribution over time and between social groups, and their association with the timing of work exit and individuals’ satisfaction with the timing of work exit. There seems to be a recent development where the more traditional way of leaving work, from one day to the next, is decreasing in importance, while an exit variant involving a period of scaling back working hours before leaving completely is becoming more common. This development has potentially beneficial consequences both for society (in the form of later exits) and for the individuals (who are more likely to be satisfied with their timing of exit). However, our results also indicate that a gradual exit may not be available to the same degree to all workers, but more so for men than for women, and for the higher than the lower educated.