Unearthing psychological predictors of financial planning for retirement among late career older workers: Do self-perceptions of aging matter?

In this study, we explore psychological predictors of retirement planning behavior among late career older workers. Drawing on a sample of 1,946 older workers aged between 50 and 65 years from the first wave of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, we investigate whether self-perceptions of aging and awareness of aging influence financial planning for retirement. Our results demonstrate that, even when controlling for age, gender, employment contract, and sector, self-perceptions of aging significantly predict the likelihood of financial planning behavior among older workers. Specifically, we found that: older workers with more positive beliefs about their ability to control aspects of aging, are more likely to financially plan for retirement; those who have an intermittent, rather than a constant, awareness of the aging process are less likely to make such financial provisions. Our findings add to the developing literature on unearthing individual differences in financial planning for retirement by providing an empirical focus on important age-relevant psychological resources, rather than on financial or social resources, thereby advancing theory in the field. We discuss the implications of our findings for both public and organizational level policy making, and outline a number of directions for future research in this area.