The work‐to‐retirement transition of academic staff: attitudes and experiences
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425451311320503 |
| Published date | 20 April 2013 |
| Pages | 322-338 |
| Date | 20 April 2013 |
| Author | Eleanor Davies,Andrew Jenkins |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
The work-to-retirement
transition of academic staff:
attitudes and experiences
Eleanor Davies and Andrew Jenkins
The Business School, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the significance of the work-to-retirement
transition for academic staff from a life course perspective and the manner in which individuals have
managed the transition.
Design/methodology/approach – In total, 32 semi-structured interviews were conducted with
academic staff from ten Universities in England. The data are analysed using matrix analysis.
Findings – Marked differences in the experience of the work-to-retirement transition were found
and five groups are identified which characterise the significance of retirement. Clean Breakers view
retirement as a welcome release from work. Opportunists and Continuing Scholars use retirement to
re-negotiate the employment relationship. The Reluctant consider retirement as a loss of a valued
source of identity and the Avoiders are undecided about retirement plans.
Research limitations/implications – The focus of the study is at the individual level. A more
complete understanding of retirement decisions would encompass organisational approaches to
retirement issues.
Practical implications – There are practical implications for academics approaching retirement.
Not all academics wish to continue to engage in academic work in retirement. For those who do,
opportunities are predominantly available to staff with stronger social and professional capital.
Continued engagement necessitates personal adaptability and tolerance to ambiguity. Staff who are
planning their careers might build such factors into retirement planning.
Social implications – Organisations need to rethink their responsibilities in managing retirement
processes as they face an increasing variety of retirement expectations in the workforce. Given the
unfolding de-institutionalisation of retirement, both individuals and organisations need to re-negotiate
their respective roles.
Originality/value – The paper characterises the diversity of modes of experiencing retirement by
academic staff, highlighting differences between the groups.
Keywords Academic staff, Universities, Retirement, Older workers, Continuity theory,
Disengagement
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In recent times, there has been considerable debate surrounding the nature and timing
of retirement (Ekerdt, 2009; Shultz and Wang, 2011). Retirement is a social construction
(Phillipson, 1998) and social and economic factors have moulded its evolution over the
past 50 years. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a sho rt-lived consensus that retirement
at a given chronological age was “normal”. In the 1970s/1980s, “early retirement” was
used to mask widespread unemployment of “older” parts of the workforce and in
the twenty-first century older employees are being strongly pressured by economic
circumstances to remain longer in work.
The pressure to remain in work longer is being framed by evolving institutionalised,
perhaps even deinstitutionalised, arrangements. In the UK, mandatory retirement ages
were largely abolished in 2011; there is an ongoing degradation of public and private
final salary pension schemes, shifting responsibility for retirement away from the state
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Employee Relations
Vol. 35 No. 3, 2013
pp. 322-338
rEmeraldGroup PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425451311320503
322
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35,3
and welfare systems onto the individual (Ebbinghaus, 2011) and there is an upwards
shift in the age at which state pensions can be drawn.
In the conventional tripartite life model of education-work-rest, retirement forms a
boundary between “work” and “rest”. Retirement is commonly perceived as a period of
“normal” disengagement from work which is both a significant life “ event”an d a major
life “transition”. In practice, transitions from work to retirement are increasingly
complex (Hulme, 2012) and the notion of individu als’ lives fitting into “standard”
stages, and retirement being a fixed or determined life stage, is unravelling. Life
stages are becoming “de-standardised” (Guillemard, 1989) and the possibl e endings to
working life are multiplying (Phillipson, 1998) through forms of flexible working such
as fractional contracts and bridge employment.
As the social structures of retirement fade, it falls to individuals to negotiate their
own careers and retirement paths. Life-course perspectives highlight that retirement
transitions do not relate solely to employment circumstances and motivation to work
(Bown-Wilson, 2011), but are embedded into broader life trajectories which also include
family, health, care and leis ure transitions (Phillipson, 2002; Vic kerstaff et al., 2008).
Hence, the realities of contemporary retirement justify investigation. This paper
examines individual-level attitudes and experiences of the retirement transition in a
sample of university academics and illustrates the ways in which retirement is used as
a means of either continued engagement or disengagement with working life.
Theories of retirement
Although life course theories tend to consider individuals’ lives through the lens of
social structures, the more psychologically orientated life span developmentalists
illustrate that individuals are not pawns whose biographies are deter mined by life
templates (Shanahan and Hood, 2000). Individuals hold their own work interests,
values and attitudes and are able to exert control and self-regulation through personal
agency (Bandura, 1997), navigating their own life paths and creating individualised
trajectories and biographies. They create and infer meaning from their actions an d
their experiences (Settersten, 2003).
In respect of retirement, there is substantial evidence that there are significant
individual differences in attitudes and preferences to work and retirement and that
standard approaches, such as those offered by many employers, do not provide effective
models of retirement (Flynn and McNair, 2008; Vickerstaff et al., 2008). The significance
of the work-to-retirement transition in the life course can vary considerably between
individuals and this is reflected in the different theoretical approaches advanced to
explain adjustment to retirement, each emphasising different aspects of the retirement
transition. Role theory (George, 1980), for example places specific focus on the role
changes that occur through leaving the workforce and the ne ed to create new roles to
replace those lost. By contrast, continuity theory (Atchley, 1979) holds that individuals
make adaptive choices over time to preserve and maintain existing internal and
external structures. From Atchley’s perspective, continuity does no t refer to clinging to
the past in an unchanging manner, but rather to adjusting and adapting to unfolding
circumstances. Retirement that evolves in an incremental manner may not challenge
the core concept of the self.
Crawford (1971) examines retirement from the perspective of disengagement
theory (Cumming and Henry, 1961) and explores whether retirement might be one of
the first markers to signify the passage into older age and subsequent disengagement
from society. In her investigation into whether couples facing retirement experience
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Academic staff
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