The long goodbye: Age, demographics, and flexibility in retirement

The current literature on retirement decisions has given inadequate attention to the impacts of increasing life expectancy. This paper examines workforce aging and retirement within a framework that not only includes age, but also integrates increasing life expectancy into the discussion. Employee preference surveys regarding choice in retirement are supported by the demographic and by work-time compression arguments for retirement flexibility. We outlinearguments why partial-retirement policies would be a practical and timely transition strategy for organizations and societies in a world of increasing life expectancies and aging workforces,especially when facing the imminent retirement of the large post-war baby-boom generation.