The normative anticipation of retirement by older workers

The scope of explanation for retirement behavior could be greatly enlarged by acknowledging workers' extended engagement with the question before the event-its "givenness" in their future, and their course of action toward it . This study provides evidence for such extended involvement among workers aged 51 to 61 in the 1992 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) who saw themsel ves being within 15 years of retiring. To the extent that workers foresaw l ess time left at work, they reported more frequent thinking and talking abo ut retirement. This pattern was quite general. The consideration given to r etirement was, as expected, more frequent in circumstances that might orien t workers toward the future. However, even absent these circumstances, subj ective proximity still predicted the topicality of retirement. Widely held, albeit individual, timetables for retirement demonstrate its embeddedness in the subjective life course of older workers.