THE ROLE OF BRIDGE JOBS IN THE RETIREMENT TRANSITION - GENDER, RACE, AND ETHNICITY

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.