The transition of older Australian workers to full and partial retirement

Abstract

Older workers exiting the labour force follow diverse pathways to retirement. This paperexamines the incidence and determinants of partial retirement in Australia using data fromthe first four waves of the HILDA Survey. Partial retirement is defined as working parttime(less than 30 hours a week), after having left full-time employment (30 hours or morea week). A multinomial logit model is used to examine a sample of older workers whowere employed full-time in 2001. Their labour force status in 2004 is modelled againstpersonal characteristics to identify the factors affecting retirement transitions. The resultsindicate that most factors have a similar directional impact on the likelihood of both partialand full retirement. However, many factors affect men and women differently and womenare more likely to experience partial retirement than men. Overall, between one third andone half of individuals who left full-time employment experienced partial retirement.