THE DECISION TO RETIRE - A CAREER PERSPECTIVE

Objective. A career perspective inspired by symbolic interaction theor y suggests that anticipatory planning, work and family role characteri stics, and gender may influence the decision to retire. Methods. Hypot heses are tested from a longitudinal data set collected in 1992 from m arried, full-time workers from fifty-eight to sixty-four years of age in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina, metropolitan area, and from a follow-up survey in 1994 that distinguishes married workers who have retired from those who have continued to work. Results. Find ings include that (1) married workers engaged in retirement planning w ere more likely to retire early; (2) those who were more satisfied wit h their work were less likely to have retired by 1994; (3) having a wo rking spouse decreased and marital satisfaction increased the likeliho od of retirement; and (4) women were more likely to retire in the two- year interval than men, and there were only a few differences between men and women in the factors that influenced retirement. Conclusions. The findings confirm that retirement entails much more than just a dec ision to stop working full-time. Retirement highlights the convergence of past and present temporal dimensions, as well as objective and sub jective characteristics of work, family, and gender roles.