Identifying contemporary early retirement factors and strategies to encourage and enable longer working lives: A scoping review

Aim: Accelerating population ageing is raising concern in many countries now in relation to the availability of workers for essential work roles and responsibilities. A scoping research literature review was done to identify factors currently associated with early retirement and contemporary strategies to encourage and support longer working lives. Methods: Using the PRISMA-ScR Checklist, we searched the Directory of Open Access Journals and EBSCO Discovery Service for published 2013–2018 research articles using the keyword/MeSH term “early retirement”; 54 English-language articles in peer-review journals were reviewed. Results: Seven early retirement factors were revealed: Ill health, good health, workplace issues, the work itself, ageism, social norms and having achieved personal financial or pension requirement criteria. Six suggested solutions, none proven effective, were identified: Occupational health programmes, workplace enhancements, work adjustments, addressing ageism, changing social norms and pension changes. Conclusions: The evidence base on early retirement prevention is not strong, with qualitative investigations needed for in-depth understandings of early retirement influences and mixed-methods studies needed to test early retirement prevention solutions for their effects. Implications for practice: Until more evidence is available, every organisation should perform an early retirement risk assessment and identify current versus needed policies and programmes to encourage and enable more middle-aged and older people to work longer.