“i saw the handwriting on the wall”: shades of meaning in reasons for early retirement

"1 SAW THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL":

Shades of Meaning in Reasons for Early Retirement

ANN ROBERTSON* Unviversity of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT: This article attempts to locate people's individual decisions to take early retirement in the particular social and economic context in which these decisions are being made. Results are presented from a phenomenological case study o f a particular group o f people who talked about their reasons for having taken early retirement from a particular company. The analysis indicates that the reasons people give for their decision do not always fall neatly into dichotomous explanatory categories such as "health versus wealth," "push versus pull factors," or "voluntary versus involuntary," as suggested by much o f the current literature. Rather, this decision is fraught with shades o f ambiguity, and involves complex and multiple considerations at the personal, workplace, and societal levels.

INTRODUCTION

I s s u e s surrounding early retirement have gained public prominence in the last decades of the twentieth century. It has become almost axiomatic that concomitant with the increasing globalization of world market economies, through such international trade agreements as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs), and EU (European Union), has come demands for increased productivity and competitiveness at national and corporate levels. This has led, in turn, to a range of economic and labor policies in both the private and public sectors of most developed countries to reduce the

* Direct all correspondence to: Ann Robertson, Department of Health Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A8.

JOURNAL OF AGING STUDIES, Volume 14, Number 1, pages 63-79. Copyright © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 0890-4065.

64 JOURNAL OF AGING STUDIES Vol. 14/No. 1/2000

costs of production, including various strategies for reducing the costs of labor. One of these strategies has been the use of "early retirement" incentive programs to induce older workers to leave the workplace before the "usual" age of retirement, which in most Western countries has been set by public policy as the age of eligibility for public pension plan benefits (e.g., in Canada, this has been set at age 65). As the post-World War II "baby boom" bulge, which currently dominates the workforce, moves into its 50s, it is predicted that an increasing number of older workers will leave the paid labor force before this "normal" retirement age (Cliff 1991; Jackson and Taylor 1994; Marshall 1995). It is important, therefore, that we understand not only the social, political, and economic implications of this phenomenon, but also its personal meaning for individuals.

Although early retirement has received more research attention since the early 1980s, it is a phenomenon that was already being investigated during the 1950s and 1960s (Minister of Labour and National Service 1954; Palmore 1964; Pollman 1971). McGoldrick and Cooper (1990) provide an excellent overview of the emergence of early retirement as a social phenomenon, as well as a review of the major research themes that have been explored. Research on early retirement can be considered to fall into two major categories: the social psychological literature, which examines individual factors related to the decision to retire early as well as subsequent life satisfaction (e.g., see Cliff 1991; Knesek 1992; Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996; Pal- more, Fillenbaum, and George 1984) and the political economy literature, which analyses early retirement as a historically contingent labor management strategy occurring in particular social, economic, and political contexts (e.g., see Guillemard and Rein 1993; Jackson and Taylor 1994; Kohli et al. 1991; Walker 1982).

A third category of emerging research takes a life-course perspective and looks at the life trajectories of people who take early retirement from their primary source of employment (e.g., see Cliff 1991; Hanks 1990; Mutchler et al. 1997). This stream of research recognizes that the overall picture of work and retirement is changing dramatically from what has been thought of as the norm, namely, the institutionaliza- tion of retirement from the paid labor force at a certain chronological age accompa- nied by access to public old-age pension benefits. This norm is being replaced by "a diversity of pathways out of the labor force," and consistent with a life-course perspective, a major focus of this research stream is "to examine and understand the diversity in the character of [these] pathways, as well as of their component events and sequences" (Mutchler et al. 1997:$4).

The research focusing on reasons for early retirement has tended to frame early retirement as a personal decision. Emerging from this literature are various ways of explaining the early retirement decision, including the "health versus wealth" debate (e.g., Bazzoli 1985; Knesek 1992; McDonald and Wanner 1990; Palmore, Fillenbaum, and George 1984; Sammartino 1979); "push" (disincentives to continue working) and "pull" (incentives to retire) factors (e.g., Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996); and the effects of "voluntary" versus "involuntary" early retirement (e.g., Cliff 1991). Although the social context in which this personal decision is made is considered, it is most often in terms of the social norms around work and retirement (Knesek 1992; Mutchler et al. 1997), with the emphasis on an individual or micro level of analysis. Within this research stream, however, there is a move to examine

Shades of Meaning in Reasons for Early Retirement 65

a much wider range of factors involved in the early retirement decision (Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996; McGoldrick and Cooper 1990), as well as a growing awareness of "the importance of considering the broader context in which a decision is made" (Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996:181).

The political economy research on early retirement, on the other hand, focuses on early retirement as a social event in the context of overall labor force and macroeconomic trends (Guillemard and Rein 1993;, Walker 1985). Hanks (1990:425) characterizes these trends in the following way:

World market conditions in the mid-1980s led many corporate managers to examine new mechanisms for cost reduction, including voluntary separation plans. Workers nearing retirement age were identified as a segment of the work force appropriate for voluntary separation programs . . . . This strategy was more than a response to an ebb in the business cycle; it was an indicator of major change in labor management relations.

From this perspective, early retirement, like retirement itself, is viewed as a product of certain structural arrangements within society. Although characteristics of the individual (gender, class, race, occupational group) are considered in this research stream, the emphasis is on a structural or macro level of analysis. For example, in terms of the "voluntariness" of the early retirement decision, Walker (1982:65) pointed out early on, that "'voluntary' early retirement for some people may reflect social and psychological influences, as well as the arduous or alienating conditions of work."

Research in the political economy stream takes issue with the individual focus of much of the earlier sociology of retirement literature, claiming that "by focusing on the factors underlying individuals' adjustments to retirement and levels of satisfaction, sociologists [have] tended to overlook changes in the transitions to retirement and the reasons for them" (Guillemard and Rein 1993:471). These changes and the reasons for them are seen to be primarily changes in the structural arrangements of the welfare state that determine work and retirement patterns. Some researchers in this tradition have challenged the use of the term "retirement" as an adequate descriptor of this particular form of withdrawal from the paid labor force. Arguing that "in developed industrial societies, the major contemporary change in retirement has been the early definitive withdrawal from the labor market of masses of older wage-earners before the age of admission into public old-age pensions systems"--the usual social marker of retirement--Guillemard and Rein (1993:472) suggest the term "early exit" as a more appropriate label for this phenomenon.

With some exceptions (e.g., Hanks 1990; Cliff 1991), the two major streams of research into early retirement (social psychological and political economy) have both relied primarily on the use of quantitative data: medium and large-scale survey questionnaires or telephone interviews in the case of the former (e.g., McGoldrick and Cooper 1990; Maule, Cliff, and Taylor 1996); and large national/international work and retirement databases in the case of the latter (e.g., Kohli 1991). What is needed is research that has the potential to link micro and macro factors. More


specifically, what is needed is qualitative research with a phenomenological focus that examines how individuals frame their decision to take early retirement in terms of the larger context in which they are making that decision.

This article presents and discusses the results of a phenomenological case study of early retirement. It attends to the multiple and overlapping ways in which a particular group of "early retirees" talked about their reasons for having accepted an early retirement incentive package (ERIP) from their employer, demonstrating that this decision does not always fall neatly into discrete explanatory categories. Rather, this decision is fraught with shades of ambiguity and involves consideration at many levels--personal, workplace, and social.

METHODOLOGY

Purpose of Study

The purpose of the study reported here was to investigate the meaning of early retirement for a group of people who had left employment at a major Canadian company before the age of 65. The study sought to explore and examine the reasons that participants gave for accepting an ERIP from the company, and the ways in which they had subsequently shaped their "post-early retirement" lives. By focusing on the ways in which people talked about this life transition, this study aimed to provide contextual insight into the changing nature and meaning of current work and retirement patterns.

For the purposes of this discussion, the term "early retirement" will be used to describe the study participants' leaving of the company before the age of 65. Even though some of the study participants went on to other paid work, whether as self- employed or as employees, the majority (26 out of 29) did not reenter the paid labor force after they left the company.

Context of Current Study

The research described in this article is located in the context of a larger study, "Issues of an Aging Workforce," funded by Human Resources Development Can- ada and conducted at the Institute for Human Development, Life Course, and Aging at the University of Toronto. Employing a comparative case study method, this larger study of seven Canadian and U.S. private companies in different sectors (insurance, telecommunications, petrochemical, manufacturing) examined the atti- tudes and perceptions of managers regarding a number of issues related to workforce aging: the effectiveness and value of older workers; the impact of age-related health changes on older workers; and issues regarding recruitment, training and retirement of older workers.

The current study focused on one of these companies, a major Canadian telecommunications company. Between 1985 and 1995 this company had employed a number of strategies to reduce the size of its workforce, primarily through offering a number of variously configured ERIPs to its older workers.

Shades of Meaning in Reasons for Early Retirement

TABLE 1 Age at Retirement by Occupational Group

Age M a n a g e r Technical Clerical Total (%)

50-54 2 2 1 5 (17) 55-59 4 5 6 15 (52) 60-64 3 4 2 9 (31) Total 9 11 9 29

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Study Sample

As part of the larger study, a survey questionnaire was distributed to all retirees of the company who had retired since 1985. A purposive sample was drawn from all survey respondents who indicated that they would be willing to participate in further research. This included all those who had left the company before age 65 between 1985 and 1995 and who lived in one of the major metropolitan areas in Canada (n = 219). This pool of potential study participants was stratified into three occupational groups (manager, technical, operator/clerical) and three retirement- age groups (54 and under, 55 to 59, and 60 to 64). Aiming for maximum variation sampling, a study sample pool (n = 36) was created by randomly selecting equal numbers of potential participants in each of the nine occupational/retirement-age categories. The actual number of participants successfully recruited into each of these categories is shown in Table 1, resulting in a convenience study sample of 29 individuals.

Participant characteristics are shown in Table 2. Noteworthy is the pattern of work and retirement that is told by these characteristics. The average age of retirement of study participants across all three occupational groups was 57, and the average number of years of employment at the company ranged from 30 to 36. For the most part, this group of people represents a cohort of people who went to work for this particular company directly after leaving high school in the mid to late 1950s, worked for that company for the rest of their working lives, and retired with an adequate occupational pension. In many respects, this represents a prototype of the usual or "normal" work and retirement picture for this particular age cohort of labor force participants.

Data Collection and Analysis

Focus groups were conducted with a subsample of study participants (n = 18) in each of the three occupational groups. In-depth interviews were conducted with the remaining participants. In both the focus groups and interviews, participants were asked open-ended questions about the circumstances surrounding their leaving the company, their reasons for leaving when they did, and how they felt about leaving the company at the time of their leaving. Participants also were asked about how they felt in retrospect (i.e., looking back from the time of the interview or focus group) about their leaving the company when they did. In both venues, but particularly in the in-depth interview, participants were encouraged with a number

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TABLE 2 Participant Profiles

Vol. 14/No. 1/2000

Manager Technical Cler ica l Totals Variable n=9(31) n=11(38) n=9(31) (%)

Yerrns With ERIP 6 10 5 Without ERIP 3 1 4

Gender Female 3 0 8 Male 6 11 1

Average Study Age 63 61 63 Range 57--69 57-68 55-69

Retirement Age Group 50-54 2 2 1 55-59 4 5 6 ~)-64 3 4 2

Average Retirement Age 57.3 57.1 57 Range (50--64) (53-63) (52--64)

Average Years Retired 5.6 4 5 Range (3-9) (2-6) (2-10)

Average Years at the Company 36 36 30 Range (20--43) ( 3 0 - - 4 1 ) (20-39)

21 (72) 8 (28)

11 (38) 18 (62)

5 (17) 15 (52) 9 (31)

Note: ERIP = early retirement incentive package.

of probes to elaborate on the reasons they offered for leaving the company when they did.

All focus groups and interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. The transcripts of focus groups and personal interviews were subjected to an inductive content analysis according to standard interpretive techniques (Berg 1995; Glaser 1992; Holstein and Gubrium 1994; Huberman and Miles 1994; Lincoln and Guba 1985; Strauss and Corbin 1994). This involved multiple close readings of the text of the transcripts to generate a coding scheme based on emerging themes and issues. This coding scheme was then applied back to the transcripts to develop analytical categories for discussing the meaning of early retirement and its implications for the lives of participants after leaving the company. This article focuses on the first of these, namely the meaning that participants attached to their "early retirement" from the company.

R E S U L T S

Part A: Leaving Wi th an ERIP

Of the 29 study participants, 21 (72%) left the company with an ERIP. Inasmuch as all of these people made the decision either to apply for or to accept an ERIP when it was offered (and if they met the eligibility requirements), their leaving of the company could be said to have been a matter of personal choice. However, as people talked about their reasons for leaving the company when they did, it became


clear that these reasons did not fall into a few discrete categories, but rather were imbued with multiple shades of meaning. These shades of meaning are illustrated below with excerpts from the focus group and interview transcripts. The headings for the following sections are meant to be descriptive of the various meanings people ascribed to their reasons for taking early retirement, and are not intended to create any kind of typology. As will become clear, these meanings are not necessarily mutually exclusive and indeed, tend to blur into each other.

"THE TIMING WAS JUST RIGHT"

The company had an established early retirement plan (ERP) that, like many such plans, consisted of a formula combining an employee's age with their years of employment to arrive at a pension benefit equivalent to some percentage of their working wage (often characterized as, for example, "80 and out"). The early retirement incentive plans (ERIP) of the company, like most ERIPs, had an added cash pay-out incentive. Between 1985 and 1995, the company had offered a number of different kinds of ERIPs based on different kinds and combinations of pension formulas and cash pay-outs.

Many of those who retired from the company with an ERIP already had quite specific plans (or "dreams") about when they would retire, based on their knowledge of the company's standard ERP. For them, the timing of the ERIP coincided closely---or closely enough--with their own preexisting retirement plans and, thus, was quite serendipitous. They expressed this sense of serendipity in a variety of ways.

My financial and other planning.. , led me to plan for retirement in August of that same year [at age 57], so when the ERIP came along, and that was some percentage higher than what would be normal, ! decided to take it . . . my ambition was always to leave when I had 40 years' service, so it was just a difference between March and August. (Harry, FG-M:6)

I had planned on going shortly after the ERIP was offered [at age 55], so it wasn't really a big surprise, but it was certainly a financial advantage. (Andy, FG-T:2)

I was gonna retire anyway in ' 9 4 . . . and this is February '93 . . . in my particular circumstance, it was should I do it now, or wait a year? I think it worked out to about a hundred bucks a month difference (Margaret, FG-C:8, 10, 11)

For some who did not express specific retirement plans, the timing of the ERIP was also instrumental in their decision to leave when they did. One woman expressed this sentiment quite clearly.

• . . then the '90 [ERIP] package came along. There had been a number of packages prior to t ha t . . , and it was never the right time--I wasn't in the least bit interested. But this one was just, the timing was just right and it was, I think, quite a good package, so that's why I went. (Mary, FG-M:7)

All of these participants referred to the financial advantage of the ERIP. Although


it is difficult to separate out the timing of the ERIP from the financial incentive it conferred, it appears that for many, it was the timing of the E R I P that was the major factor in their decision to leave the company when they did.

"IT WAS TOO GOOD TO REFUSE"

Some people clearly left the company with an E R I P earlier than they might otherwise have done because of the financial incentive of the ERIP. As one man expressed it,

I took an [ERIP] . . . after 36 years [at age 57] . . . [I did] lots of technical work, I really enjoyed it, but when the [ERIP] was offered, right, it was too good to r e f u s e . . , otherwise I would have maybe stayed on a little while. (Jeff, FG-T:5)

One woman was very clear about the thinking process that she went through in deciding to accept an ERIP, and about how it was the financial advantage that was the deciding factor.

I was, [ guess, almost 59 when I left . . . . I had planned to retire at 6 0 . . . and I thought, well, at 59 they're offering a package that would probably equal my year's salary . . . . A n d i f I hadn't taken it, I may have been still sitting there today working• . . it kind o f made my mind up for me. (Ethel, FG-C:I, 8)

Another man elaborated on the way in which the timing and the financial advantage of the ERIP came together for him.

• . . it was my dream to retire on February 28, 1995 [at age 59]. That was the day I started, forty years to the day . . . . And they came and offered me over a year's wages to leave [February 28, 1993] which I thought was just fantastic• •.. And I said, well, okay. Thirty-eight years. And I thought, that's long enough• (Jim, FG-T:12-13)

It seemed that for these participants it was the financial incentive of the E R I P that was the major factor in the timing of their leaving the company•

"1 THINK I WAS READY FOR A CHANGE"

For the few (n = 3) who left the company with an E R I P and had no plans to "retire" in the sense of leaving the paid workforce altogether, the E R I P appeared to represent an opportunity to make a change in their work life, to pursue some other kind of paid work. This was the case even though they were quite happy in their jobs at the company.

I was 50 when I ret i red. . , it was a good financial package for people my age. • . . I wouldn't have gone out at 50 on just a straight buy-out, because I enjoyed working for [the company] . . . . I would have to stay to 60 [to get the same


financial benefi t] . . , but I would have lost that ten years staying in there instead o f getting up and doing something, which I did. (Douglas, I-M:I, 4)

I think I was ready for a change. Not necessarily to retire, but I felt I was ready for a change. (Marian, I-C:3) . . . . And actually I was quite happy at my job, too, but I felt if the opportunity came, I 'd like to retire and maybe do something on a part-time basis, which I did. (Marian, FG-C:15)

For these people, the financial advantage and the timing of the E R I P were clearly important , but primarily in that they matched a certain "readiness" or willingness to move on to something else.

"THEY COULDN'T TELL M E WHERE I WAS GONNA GO"

Several people decided to accept the E R I P offer because of job uncertainty, primarily in terms of imminent changes in the location or nature of their jobs. For example, as part of the "downsizing" efforts of the company, offices were about to be closed and many positions were about to be eliminated or significantly changed. People talked about this uncertainty surrounding their jobs in particular ways.

. . . my particular office was closing. There were many others around, but I really didn't want to go into a different location and a different environment, and I had had enough, 36 years with the company. (Mary, FG-M:2-3)

• . . I really was without a job. My system had closed down and I had been loaned free to another department, so I knew that was it, you k n o w . . , my last years on my job were not that fulfilling anyway. (Susan, FG-M:3)

I never gave retirement a second thought. In fact, I hated to go at the time. • . . But they couldn't tell me where I was gonna go i f I didn't take the ERIP, because the office was closing down. (Glen, FG-T:10)

For all of these participants, none of whom reentered the paid workforce after leaving the company, ret i rement was clearly preferable to adapting to major changes in their jobs.

Some participants accepted the E R I P because conditions at work had become untenable for them. One woman, who was clearly still upset about leaving the company, decided to accept the E R I P and look for other paid work because of conflict with her manager.

I was 52 at the time and I wasn't ready to l e ave . . , but the last year and a hal f was the worst year and a hal f that I've ever had. I was working for a woman and • . . she was on my case, everything I did was wrong, nothing I could do was right. (Virginia, I-O:1)

For all of the above participants, leaving the company---even with the financial advantage of the E R I P - - w a s fraught with regret and some resentment. In spite of their voluntarily accepting the ERIP, these people clearly felt that to a great extent they were in a position where they had very little choice about taking early re- t irement.


Part B: Leaving Without an ERIP

A number of study participants left the company before the age of mandatory ret i rement (65) without an E R I P (n = 8; 28% of all participants). Some of these, like those who left the company with an ERIP , perceive their leaving the company as having been their own choice because they left the company when they had planned to leave.

I r e t i r e d . . , at the ripe old age of 55. And the reason I retired was I had a dream. I had a dream that I wanted to retire at 55. And I guess the planning that I did from age 45 to 55 enabled me to retire. (Ted, FG-M:2)

I left on my birthday--I was trying to leave on my 58th b i r thday . . . I had 39 years service, I was 58 . . . . I had been planning it, I don't know how far back, but I always said I would leave then and do something else. (Jack, I-M:2)

I was in my 64th year when I left . . . . I was ready to retire . . . . I figured on leaving when I was in my early 60s, so really it worked out fairly well to the time I wanted to. (Elaine, I-C:1-4)

Several people who took early ret i rement f rom the company without an E R I P did so because of uncertainty about their jobs or because of conflicts with immediate bosses, circumstances that echoed those of some of the participants who left with an ERIP.

There were just so many changes made, and they were going to have us go from the office out into the public and teach the public on the new systems, so you had to have a car and you had to travel and I didn't really want to do that. (Dianne, FG-O:3)

. . . and I had terrific bosses until the last one. And we did not agree on anything . . . I told [my husband] I just couldn't stand working there and he said "quit." (Valerie, I-O:1, 5)

Overall, it appears that people who left without an E R I P talked about their leaving the company in very similar ways to those who left with an ERIP.

Part C: Changes in the Company

One of the major findings of this study was the extent to which participants talked about the changes that had been occurring in the company, prior to and around the time at which they took early ret irement, as having a considerable influence on their decision. Even when these changes were not invoked as the pr imary reason for their leaving, the changes at the company almost always came up as people elaborated on their reasons for leaving when they did.

As might be expected in light of technological changes in the telecommunications industry throughout the 1980s, technological changes and their effects on the workplace and the nature of jobs were ment ioned by several people as factors that seemed to influence their leaving the company when they did. However , what was unexpected, and elaborated on by more participants, was the changing corporate


culture at the company that made it, for them, a less congenial workplace. The way in which people talked about both kinds of changes is illustrated below.

Technological Changes One man described the nature of the technological changes as it affected the

technical occupational group.

It changed drastically in the last decade• Everything used to be mechanical switches, you know• Now everything--there's none of that left--basically everything is electronic. All software programming, which is new to just about everybody that's here [at the Focus Group], you know. The younger fellows coming in, this is all they're learning. They wouldn't know anything about the old technology at all. And it was a big change that way. (Jeff, FG-T:13-14)

Some people talked more specifically about their concerns about keeping up with the technological changes.

Well, like, I was getting older first of all, and I'd reached a point where I was enjoying life outside the company. And I thought if I had to s t a r t . . , putting in all this new technology I knew nothing abou t . . , and computer stuff I didn't know the first thing about . . . . And so I could just see my having to learn all this s t u f f . . , and I said that's enough o f that and that's what really spurred me on to go . . . . I wasn't going to give my whole body, soul, and spirit to the company. (Barry, FG-T:12)

For some people, although they may not have had difficulty with learning the new technology, they nevertheless commented on the way that the technology, by changing the nature of their jobs, affected their sense of job satisfaction.

Technological change was getting a little much. And the staff, lack of staff, you're expected to do two or three jobs at times, so I just figured it was time to get out. (Andy, FG-T:13)

• . . nowadays everything works so well, nothing breaks down, so it gets monotonous . . . . You exchange it, you don't fix it. (Frank, FG-T:6)

One woman, who had been a switchboard operator , was especially eloquent as she struggled to distinguish between the technological changes in her job and the changes in the nature of her job, changes that clearly diminished her job satisfaction.

• . . the job I was doing I was very b o r e d . . . [before] you could use your head and your mind and help people, but with the computer, the computer did the work and you just said "thank you", "thank you" all day l o n g . . , if a person really needed your h e l p . . , you had to sort of almost choke them off and it went against your g r a i n . . , because I was older, it was very hard to do some of the things we had to do. I don't mean it was, that it was hard--it went against your grain, that's what I mean, it went against your grain. (Shirley, FG-O:19-20)


One manager, who left without an ERIP , was also quite clear about making the distinction between the technological changes and the changes in the nature of his job that made it difficult for him.

But the job, the technical part of the job, was easy. It never changed--well, it changed, it grew, but it was always something I liked to do. The managing o f people was changing quite severely, it just wasn't an honorable thing anymore. (Ted, FG-M:13)

This leads to a consideration of another area of change at the company that many participants referred to in talking about their reasons for leaving when they did, namely, the changes in corporate culture.

Changes in Corporate Cul ture

It is important to note that many people emphasized the fact that it was not the technological changes, per se, that were the most influential in their leaving the company when they did. Rather, it was the changes in corporate culture and the nature of particular jobs resulting f rom the technological and regulatory changes in the telecommunications industry that many felt they could not---or did not want t o - - a d a p t to. People expressed this in a number of different ways.

Several managers who left with an E R I P referred to the changes in management style at the company, which they had some difficulties with.

I think when I left I saw the handwriting on the wall. They were expecting me to demand more and more o f my people and that was kind o f a tough thing to do. I was not reluctant to leave at all. (Harry, FG-M:ll)

I think things were changing too in the company. That's the other thing I think that maybe led up to [my] leaving when I did a bit. They were changing f rom what we used to call the good old company to lean, mean, and trim . . . . I may have a hard time today in that environment that they are creating . . . . Now some of the handwriting was on the wall when we were there at that time . . . . I think a lot of us [managers] would have been able to change to it. But I don't really know if we wanted to. (Douglas, 1-M:13-14)

One manager, who left without an ERIP , was more specific about the kinds of changes in management style that were distasteful to him.

• . . if your people didn't meet their objectives, which sometimes weren't all that realistic, they got penalized for i t . . . the money is one thing, but to a lot of people it's a lot of pride and [to go] to them and say you're not satisfactory. • . . I could do it but it didn't sit well with m e . . . . I didn't like playing those games. (Ted, FG-M:12)

Others expressed the opinion that with the changing management style, the way in which employees were regarded by the company had changed significantly•

The day when I left I was getting the feeling that some of the younger members


of the Technical Group were almost numbers, ciphers. Whereas, throughout my whole experience I always felt that I was considered as an individual. Concern was expressed by management for any personal problems that we had. Things that we wanted to do were listened to, and we always had input into the jobs that we did. (Erik, I-T:9)

When you were expected to provide the very, very best service, there was respect for everybody that was working there, doing it . . . . We're all trying our best, and when we got some credit for doing a good job, everybody from the top down was appreciative. Whereas, now it's all numbers and efficiency. And if they can, they get rid of ten guys by installing more computers. They're gonna do that. So, it's become very impersonal. (Vern, I-T:27)

What is important about what these early retirees are saying, is that it is not technological changes themselves--which in the telecommunications industry have been dramatic and significant--that were major incentives for older workers to choose early retirement. Rather, for many of the study participants, it was changes in managerial styles, the productivity demands made on people, the ways in which people were treated and regarded by the company--a long with other considerations such as timing and financial incentives--that made early retirement more attractive than continuing to work for the company.

Awareness of Larger Context of Early Retirement

A second major finding of this study was that although the participants framed their decision to take early retirement as an individual decision, they nearly always placed that decision within a broader social and economic context. For example, in terms of the changes in technology and in the corporate culture of the company, many participants talked about the necessity for these changes as a response to an increasingly global competitive telecommunications market.

We've had 33 good years and then, well, it's changed. Which it had to, there's no question about it, it had to in today's environment . . . . They would be in deep trouble, more trouble than they are in now, if they hadn't. (Douglas, I-M:14)

Several participants commented on the significant effects, at many levels, of this increasing competition within a global telecommunications market.

I'd like to go back to around the early 90s . . . there is another thing other than technological change and that was the oncoming compe t i t i on . . , and that may have had some place in people's decision to leave . . , the point being that with the new technology, the ability of the union to preserve jobs was becoming minimized. (Tom, FG-T:18-21)

Well, I didn't want to go. I was gonna work till I was 95 . . . . I just hated the word "retirement" . . . but there was enough headaches and the pressure was coming on because the competition was getting greater within the company. (Barry, FG-T:ll-12)

One man, in particular, captured the nature in which a number of external forces


came together for those considering early retirement in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

But everything seemed to come so fast, the competition and the technology change and then these [ERIPs]. It's as if you had several things piled on you at one time. (Tom, FG-T:37)

These participants demonstrated reflexivity regarding their decision to take early retirement, in that they were able to locate themselves and their own individual life trajectories within a broader context. In other words, they connected biography with history (Mills 1959).

DISCUSSION

Although the question of choice in terms of the timing of retirement was deliberately not put explicitly to the participants, what emerges from an analysis of the data is that approximately half of all study participants (n = 14; 48% of all participants; 67% of those who left the company with an ERIP) framed their leaving the company as primarily their own choice.

One participant, who had been offered three earlier ERIPs, which he did not take because he "wasn't ready," elaborated on the significance of choice in terms of the timing of retirement:

I think one of the greatest ways of retiring is when YOU decide to retire. You have to take into consideration what are you going to do, how much money will you have, what would your health be? And it's a mental process, the moment of retirement. I f you are not ready to retire and you are forced out in any way, I think you will have an unhappy retirement. (Erik, I-T:4)

There was also a perception on the part of many participants that, in terms of this issue of personal choice, they had "got out" at the right time.

It was just a decision that either I want to retire or I don't want to retire . . . . But I guess since we've left there's been a lot of forced [retirements]--I was speaking to some guys today--and they're being forced to make a decision that I wasn't forced to make. 'Cause they know that if they don't take [early retirement], they'll be part of the 10,000 that's gonna be out [as result of the company's downsizing]. (Barry, FG-T:39)

However, as discussed previously, even when people expressed their decision to leave the company as primarily a matter of personal choice, changes in their jobs or the corporate culture---changes that could be said to be beyond their personal control----clearly had some bearing on their decision to take early retirement when they did.

At the same time, slightly less than half of study participants (n = 13; 38%) talked about leaving the company with a sense of ambiguity as to the degree of


choice they felt about leaving when they did. For the people in this group the decision to accept the ERIP was clearly influenced--to varying degrees---by other circumstances perceived to be beyond their personal control and choice. As discussed in the preceding section, these circumstances were primarily in terms of current and imminent changes in both the nature of particular jobs and more general changes in the workplace.

In terms of this issue about choice in the timing of retirement, it is important to note that, in contrast to some of the literature on early retirement, which indicates that poor health is a major reason for taking early retirement, only two people out of the entire study group left because of their own poor health--one with an ERIP and one without. It is possible that, with the small sample size, this finding is an artifact of recruitment and data collection. It could be a result of the "healthy participant" effect; that is, anyone not in good health may have been less likely to indicate on the initial survey, from which this study sample was drawn, that they were willing to participate in further research. It could also be that, although the technical occupational group included men who had been "linemen" requiring them to climb tall telephone poles, for the most part, none of the work at this company was especially hard, dirty, or dangerous. These are work conditions that in other sectors may result in health being cited as a major reason for taking early retirement. Also in contrast to other studies of early retirement, nobody in the study group gave the poor health of a spouse or other family member as a reason for leaving the company when they did. This could also be an artifact of recruitment and data collection. Clearly, further research--in particular, more comparative case studies--are required to explore in more depth the extent and nature of the influence of health---one's own and that of family members--on the timing of retirement.

From the data collected for this study, it appears that the reasons people give for taking early retirement, with or without an ERIP, are associated with the conditions under which people left the company. These conditions--personal, corporate, and the broader context of the global market--affect the extent to which people perceived their early retirement as a matter of personal choice. However, it also appears that the degree of perceived personal choice in leaving the company does not fall into the dichotomous categories of "own choice" versus "no choice" but, rather, lies along a continuum. How this may or may not affect participants' post-early retirement lives is the subject of continuing analyses of the data collected for this study.

Although the majority of participants in this study left the company in the early 1990s when a particularly attractive ERIP was introduced, a major limitation of this study is the wide range in the "time since retirement" (2 to 10 years). It is difficult to ascertain from this study the effects of time since retirement on participants' retrospective constructions of their reasons for leaving the company when they did. It could be, for example, that people who have been retired longer, and who could, therefore, be said to have made more adjustments to post-retirement life, construct their reasons for leaving in a more positive light. Or, it could be that people who have retired more recently are in a more favorable financial situation and present their reasons for leaving when they did in a more positive light. Further analysis of the study data with respect to how participants talked about their post-retirement


lives may shed some light on this issue for this particular study. In addition, further study should consider length of time since retirement as a possible factor in how people construct their reasons for the timing of their retirement.

One of the underlying assumptions of this study is that individual decisions to take early retirement are made within the broader social, political, and economic context in which individuals make those decisions. National social policies--such as labor policy, public pension policy, and health policy--play a major role in setting these contexts. This particular study was conducted in the Canadian policy context that, among other things, includes eligibility for public pensions at age 65; no legislative proscription against mandatory retirement at age 65; and universal pub- licly funded health care insurance for all residents, regardless of age or financial means. Further comparative research, particularly cross-national studies, would assist in elucidating the ways in which different policy environments affect individual decision-making about the timing of retirement.

In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the decision to take early retirement does not always fall neatly into dichotomous explanatory categories such as health versus wealth, push versus pull factors, voluntary versus involuntary, or own choice versus no choice. Rather, this decision is fraught with shades of ambiguity and involves considerations at several levels--personal, workplace, and social. This study also provides evidence that although people may make a decision about early retirement on the basis of very personal, local, and particular considerations, they locate those individual decisions in the broader context in which they are made, revealing at a phenomenological level the Pascalian notion that "The world encom- passes me but I understand it" (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992:127).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This study was conducted as part of a three-year project, "Issues of an Aging Workforce," that Dr. Victor Marshall, Principal Investigator, conducted at the Institute of Human Development, Life Course, and Aging, University of Toronto, and funded by Human Resources Development Canada. The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Dr. Peri Ballantyne to this study and the helpful comments of anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this article.

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“i saw the handwriting on the wall”: shades of meaning in reasons for early retirement

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