Description:
With current policy concerns about shortfalls of labour supply and effects on the social welfare system due to population ageing, there is a need to understand the factors that shape women's choices about if, when and how to retire. Recent trends indicating the increased workforce participation of women demand new policy responses to the end of careers and retirement transitions to sustain acceptable levels of participation and productivity. This book is innovative in that it will examine constellations of factors that disadvantage or advantage women's career and retirement trajectories against a backdrop of public policy efforts to extend working lives.
Description:
Chapter 8 reports qualitative interviews with older women, drawing from the concepts of biographical work-life balance and portfolio careers. It focuses on older women who were in part-time work but who self-identified as having made a transition to retirement. Many had longstanding careers and stable networks, accrued skills and financial resources, supported a well-endowed quality of portfolio lives, whereas those who experienced ‘unbalanced’ portfolio retirement were more likely to be lacking resources from their working lives. The analysis reinforces the notion that retirement should be viewed as a process and not an event and that it is impossible to tell a single story of women's post-work transitions.