We used the first wave of the new Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to
document the importance of transitional stages - bridge jobs - betwee
n career employment and complete labor force withdrawal in the early 1
990s. We describe the labor force status of a sample of about 9,500 ol
der Americans with some work experience after age 49, and the transiti
on patterns of those for whom we can identify a career job. We observe
significant bridge job activity, including part-time work and movemen
t between self-employment and wage-and-salary jobs. Subsequent waves o
f the HRS will permit researchers to follow this large sample through
the labor force withdrawal process and to analyze the determinants and
consequences of alternative retirement routes.