Changing Perspectives on Retirement

I the past several years, retirement research has given increasing attention to the complexity of the work-toretirement transition. The article by Mutchler et al. (1997) elsewhere in this issue illustrates the trend with its analytic focus on differentiating between crisp one-step movements from work to retirement and blurred transitions involving complex patterns such as returns to employment and second retirements. This literature's general argument is that a substantial minority of workers experience an boundary between work and retirement. There are few standard definitions here, including the definition of retirement itself. It is not surprising, therefore, that the precise meaning of clearly defined and indistinct boundaries varies as do estimates of the two pathways' relative prevalence. A sampling of research relevant to this topic indicates researchers have variously examined retirement from a post-career job, exit and return to the labor force, exit from a long-term job and return to work, a substantial decline in earnings, or partial retirement (Elder and Pavalko, 1993; Gustman and Steinmeier, 1984; Hayward, Crimmins, and Wray, 1994; Hong, 1985; Quinn, Burkhauser, and Myers, 1990; Ruhm, 1990).