The experiences of retirees and their decision to return to the workforce: implications for organizations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discover and describe the meaning retirees ascribe to the experience of retiring and then returning to paid work. The study followed a qualitative research design of interpretive phenomenological analysis. Twelve retirees (seven men and five women) who had returned to paid work were interviewed for the study. Two sets of themes emerged from this study. The first set of major themes provided the context of the findings of the study; reasons for retiring, reasons for returning to work, barriers or challenges to returning to work and why they chose to work for the particular organization or do the particular type of work in their post-retirement employment. The set of constituent themes within the context themes provided the basis of the essence of how the participants experienced the phenomenon of retiring and returning to work.