Antecedents of Bridge Employment: A Longitudinal Investigation

Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 93, No. 4, 818–830, 2008

13 Pages Posted: 7 Jul 2015 Last revised: 18 Jul 2015

See all articles by Mo Wang

Mo Wang

University of Florida - Department of Management

Yujie Zhan

University of Maryland

Songqi Liu

Georgia State University - J. Mack Robinson College of Business

Kenneth Shultz

California State University, San Bernardino

Date Written: July 1, 2008

Abstract

Bridge employment is the labor force participation pattern increasingly observed in older workers between their career jobs and their complete labor force withdrawal. It serves as a transition process from career employment to full retirement. Typical bridge employment decisions include full retirement, career bridge employment, and bridge employment in a different field. In the current study, 3 dominant theories (i.e., role theory, continuity theory, and life course perspective) on retirement processes were reviewed. On the basis of these theories, the authors proposed 4 categories of antecedents (i.e., individual attributes, job-related psychological variables, family-related variables, and a retirement-planning-related variable) of different types of bridge employment decisions. The authors used longitudinal data of a large, nationally representative sample from the Health and Retirement Study (F. Juster & R. Suzman, 1995) to test the current hypotheses. These data were analyzed with multinomial logistic regression, and most of the hypotheses were supported by the results. The implications of this study are discussed at both theoretical and practical levels.

Keywords: bridge employment, retirement, role theory, continuity theory, life course perspective

Suggested Citation

Wang, Mo and Zhan, Yujie and Liu, Songqi and Shultz, Kenneth, Antecedents of Bridge Employment: A Longitudinal Investigation (July 1, 2008). Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 93, No. 4, 818–830, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2627269

Mo Wang (Contact Author)

University of Florida - Department of Management ( email )

United States

Yujie Zhan

University of Maryland ( email )

College Park
College Park, MD 20742
United States

Songqi Liu

Georgia State University - J. Mack Robinson College of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 4050
Atlanta, GA 30303-3083
United States

Kenneth Shultz

California State University, San Bernardino ( email )

5500 University Parkway
San Bernardino, CA 92407
United States

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