8

THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERESTS FOR UNDERSTANDING RETIREMENT

Laura Venz

UNIVERSITY OF MANNHEIM, GERMANY

Mo Wang

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

As a consequence of low birth rates and increased longevity, the populations in most industrialized countries are rapidly aging and the share of older people will grow in the next decades. These changes in population compositions will also impact the workforce, ultimately leading to a higher proportion of older workers and people of retirement age (Topa, Moriano, Depolo, Alcover, & Morales, 2009). As a consequence, many developed economies face a shortage of skilled workers, causing a higher need of labor market participation of older and even already retired workers in order to maintain critical talent (Dohm, 2000; Fasbender, Wang, Voltmer, & Deller, 2015). These developments raised the need for organizations and scholars alike to thoroughly understand the career decisions of older workers and retirees. Surprisingly, despite the fact that decades of research have identified interests as important determinants of career decisions in younger people (see Rounds & Su, 2014), the potential role of interests in retirement has, to date, been neglected in empirical research. The main aim of this chapter is to present a theoretical model on the importance of interests to understand retirement.

General Conceptualization of Interests

Interests are commonly defined as individual preferences for certain activities, situations in which activities occur, or outcomes of the preferred activities (Rounds, 1995). Interests possess trait-like qualities (i.e., they are relatively stable over time) that influence goal-oriented behaviors through motivational processes and, thus, play an important role in long-term planning and decision making (Low, Yoon, Roberts, & Rounds, 2005; Rounds & Su, 2014). For instance, interests are a major determinant of occupational choice (e.g., Holland, 1997; Tracey & Hopkins, 2001) as well as of the selection of leisure activities (Varca & Shaffer, 1982).

The focus in the field of vocational psychology is typically on individuals’ vocational interests, which have been defined as individual preferences for certain work-related activities or environments. Vocational interests facilitate the fit between people and their work environments and are reflective of a person’s identity or self-concept (Low et al., 2005; Rounds & Su, 2014). Empirical research on vocational interests largely relied on Holland’s (1959, 1997) theory of vocational choice, according to which vocational interests can be summarized into Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional (RIASEC) interests (see Nye & Rounds, this volume, for a description of the model).

In addition to describing individuals’ vocational preferences, the RIASEC system also characterizes work environments that parallel the six general interest types. When making vocational choices, individuals seek out work environments in which their interests are met. For example, a person with high Realistic interests seeks Realistic environments and is, thus, likely to pursue a career that involves hands-on work activities, whereas someone with high Social interests is more likely to seek an occupation where he or she works with people (Holland, 1997; see also Low & Rounds, 2006).

While scholarly attention has mainly been focused on vocational interests and their role for career choices, some effort has been made to also examine leisure (sometimes referred to as avocational) interests (e.g., Kerby & Ragan, 2002; Leuty, Hansen, & Speaks, 2015). Leisure is defined as a freely chosen, intrinsically motivating engagement in activities for personal enjoyment (Tinsley & Tinsley, 2015). Given that interests are commonly defined as stable person characteristics, Holland (1997) argued that interests affect a person’s preferences in both work and leisure contexts and that vocational and leisure interests should, thus, be highly related (for empirical evidence see Gaudron & Vautier, 2007; Hansen & Scullard, 2002). Accordingly, using the RIASEC system, Kerby and Ragan (2002) showed that vocational interests are relevant to understanding leisure activities of older adults. Specifically, Kerby and Ragan identified six types of leisure activities, which coincide with Holland’s RIASEC system: The Realistic type shows high interests in manual (e.g., carpentry) and sporting activities. The Investigative type likes science and historical activities. The Artistic type prefers artistic (e.g., writing, painting) and household (e.g., baking, knitting) activities. The Social type is mostly interested in social outings (e.g., going to concerts, dining out). The Enterprising type pursues activities related to personal development such as tutoring and volunteer work. Finally, the Conventional type shows preferences for more conventional activities such as playing traditional games.

Although leisure and vocational interests seem to show a certain amount of overlap (Armstrong & Rounds, 2008), empirical research that assessed both leisure and vocational interests concurrently revealed inconclusive results on their relationship (for an overview see Leuty et al., 2015). Consequently, researchers advocated that leisure and vocational interests might be considered independently; particularly as leisure interests have been identified as a valuable additional instrument in career counseling and life planning for college students, working-age adults, and retirees alike (see Hansen, Dik, & Zhou, 2008). In this chapter, we follow this approach and discuss the roles of both vocational and leisure interests for understanding retirement.

Conceptualization of Retirement as a Temporal Process

Retirement, as the point of officially leaving the workforce, is a historically rather new phenomenon. Along with the industrial revolution and the implementation of social security systems, only starting at the beginning of the twentieth century were workers encouraged to retire at a particular age (Shultz & Wang, 2011). Nowadays, as a consequence of demographic and economic changes, many highly developed countries shifted from a policy of promoting early retirement toward encouraging the labor market participation of older people (OECD, 2006) and more and more countries increase the statutory retirement age. For example, the United States and Germany, as two of the world’s leading economies, recently increased the full retirement age from 65 to 67.

From a psychological viewpoint, however, retirement is not just the single event of exiting the workforce but rather is a complex process that unfolds over a period of several years (Shultz & Wang, 2011; Wang, Olson, & Shultz, 2013). In that view, retirement is a longitudinal adjustment process that incorporates several sequential phases, namely, retirement planning, retirement decision making, actual transition from employment to retirement, and a post-retirement trajectory—including adjustment processes and even continued employment (Beehr, 1986; Wang & Shi, 2014).

In more detail, the psychological retirement process typically starts when workers begin to think about retiring (e.g., asking themselves what they will do after retirement; Adams & Rau, 2011) and start discussing their retirement plans with others (Wang & Shi, 2014). This phase of retirement planning is accompanied by the retirement decision-making process, during which workers make a choice on whether, when, how, and where they want to retire, that is, to behaviorally withdraw from their main employment (Feldman, 1994). When workers, finally, put their plans into action and retire, they undergo a change in life roles as they withdraw from the work role and take the retirement role (Adams, Prescher, Beehr, & Lepisto, 2002; Super, 1980; Wang, 2007). However, this role change is not necessarily an abrupt one. Rather, during an adjustment process that comprises the actual retirement transition and a post-retirement trajectory (Wang, 2007), the work as well as the retirement role might increase and decrease in importance (Super, 1980), making adjustment a dynamic, fluctuating process (see Wang, Henkens, & van Solinge, 2011). These life role changes and fluctuating adjustment levels are also reflected in changes in individuals’ daily activities in post-retirement life, not only including leisure activities, but also volunteer work, and post-retirement paid work (Adams & Rau, 2011).

The psychological perspective on retirement as a temporal process emphasizes putting the research focus on individual differences as antecedents of retirement (Shultz & Wang, 2011). While corresponding research identified a wide number of individual attributes (e.g., gender, age, health, and personality; see Wang & Shi, 2014) that impact different phases of the retirement process, scholars so far missed the opportunity to study individual interests in this regard. However, research that identified older workers’ personal needs and values as important determinants of the retirement process provides an indication of the possible role of individual interests for retirement. For instance, retirees who value leisure activities are more likely to retire voluntarily (Shultz, Morton, & Weckerle, 1998), whereas retirees with high generative motives (Dendinger, Adams, & Jacobsen, 2005) and higher entrepreneurial orientations (Davis, 2003) are more likely to engage in post-retirement paid work (so-called bridge employment). Besides individual factors, job and organizational factors, family factors, and socioeconomic factors are important determinants of each individual’s retirement process (for a review see Wang & Shi, 2014).

A Theoretical Model on the Role of Interests in Retirement

Concatenating the largely unconnected literatures on interests and retirement, the present chapter provides a theoretical model on the importance of interests for understanding retirement (see Figure 8.1). Given that retirement is an important life-course transition from work to leisure (Nicolaisen, Thorsen, & Eriksen, 2012), we include both vocational interests (i.e., preferences for activities in the work life domain) and leisure interests (i.e., preferences for activities in the non-work-life domain) when discussing the role of interests in retirement. This is in line with extant research that examined both work and non-work-related factors when studying individual retirement (e.g., Schmidt & Lee, 2008; Wang & Shi, 2014) as well as in line with calls to consider vocational and leisure interests independently of each other (Leuty et al., 2015).

Following a temporal view on retirement (Shultz & Wang, 2011), in the following sections, we derive a number of propositions on the role of interests for retirement, which are summarized in Table 8.1. Specifically, we first conceptualize vocational and leisure interests as antecedents of the retirement process. Holland’s (1959) theory of interests provides a framework for the explanation of stability and change in people’s careers (Holland, 1996). Accordingly, (vocational) interests have been identified as an important determinant of young adults’ career selection and entry (Fouad, 1999; Tracey & Hopkins, 2001). In this chapter, we propose interests to be likewise important antecedents for older adults’ retirement choices and career exit decisions. Specifically, we describe how vocational and leisure interests might determine individuals’ retirement planning, decision making, and adjustment as well as individuals’ choice of post-retirement activities (i.e., bridge employment, volunteer work, and leisure activities).

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FIGURE 8.1 Theoretical model on the role of interests for understanding retirement.

TABLE 8.1 Propositions on the Role of Interests for Retirement

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Despite their stable qualities, interests continuously develop over the life span (Low et al., 2005). Not only do individuals become more certain of their interests with age (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi & Schneider, 2000), but interests also develop in response to certain life experiences and events (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994; Leuty & Hansen, 2014). Therefore, we not only expect interests to manifest as important antecedents of retirement but also propose that vocational and leisure interests develop and change as a result of retirement. Specifically, the transition from employment to retirement depicts an important role transition (Ashforth, 2001), which provides new opportunities for self-development and occupational choices (Reis & Gold, 1993). Hence, retirement depicts an important life event that has the potential to initiate interest change as a part of further self-development.

When investigating the role of interests for understanding retirement, surely other potentially relevant factors and boundary conditions need to be considered. On that account, we discuss how individual attributes (i.e., health, wealth, age, and gender), job, organizational, and family factors, socioeconomic context, and voluntariness of retirement might interplay with interests in determining the retirement process.

Interests as Antecedents of the Retirement Process

Interests are individual preferences for certain activities, contexts in which activities occur, or outcomes of the preferred activities (Rounds, 1995). Accordingly, individuals differ from each other both in what they prefer (i.e., interest content, e.g., things vs. people; Prediger, 1982) and the contexts their preferences are situated in (e.g., work vs. leisure; Leuty et al., 2015). In the following, we argue how such individual differences in interest content and context may predict the individual retirement process.

Vocational choices are not made only once in life but individuals’ careers keep developing across the entire life span (Super, 1980), ranging from individuals’ career entry to their career exit. Recalling that interests represent rather stable individual preferences, vocational interests should play the same role in career choices at all ages (Costa, McCrae, & Holland, 1984). However, to date, empirical research mainly focused on the role of vocational interests for understanding the process of career planning, decision making, and adjustment of adolescents, college students, and young workers (Low & Rounds, 2006), whereas hardly any research examined interests in relation to the career exit and retirement process.

Interests as Antecedents of Retirement Planning, Decision Making, and Adjustment

In many cases, a worker’s decision to retire is his or her individual motivated choice to behaviorally withdraw from work-related activities at a certain point in time (Adams et al., 2002; Topa et al., 2009). Scholars suggested that this voluntary retirement decision is influenced by several psychological factors, such as a person’s career orientation (Dobson & Morrow, 1984), occupational commitment (Jones & McIntosh, 2010), retirement preferences (Barnes-Farrell, 2003), and the desire to pursue leisure activities (Shultz et al., 1998). Moreover, as Beehr (1986) pointed out, a person’s retirement decision is likely to be based on a “combination of personal preferences and the environment’s potential for matching these preferences” (p. 44). Accordingly, we propose personal interests to represent important antecedents of individual retirement planning and decision making.

Interests as antecedents of retirement planning and decision making.

Generally speaking, individuals are motivated to seek out activities and environments that best match their personal interests (Holland, 1996). Because voluntary retirement is commonly associated with a reduced commitment to work (Feldman, 1994) but increased time for leisure activities (Bidewell, Griffin, & Hesketh, 2006), we propose that individuals whose vocational interests are generally higher than their leisure interests (see Leuty et al., 2015) are more likely to decide to retire later as compared to “Leisurists” (ibid.). This expectation finds support in empirical studies that indicated a relationship between individual attitudes toward one’s job and a person’s retirement decision. For example, a study by Shultz and colleagues (1998) identified a person’s dislike of his or her job as an antecedent of voluntary early retirement. Moreover, Adams and Beehr (1998) found those persons whose career is an important part of their self-identity to be less likely to retire. Schmidt and Lee (2008) also reported work centrality to negatively predict workers’ retirement intentions. Meta-analytic findings further support the notion that the individual value of and involvement in work is related to a person’s retirement decision and planning (Topa et al., 2009).

As for leisure interests, we expect “Leisurists” (Leuty et al., 2015) to be more likely to engage in retirement planning and to decide to retire, because “non-work interests can be a significant source of continuity for employees who do not experience continuity through their work. As a result, these individuals might be more likely to seek retirement instead of work, in order to achieve continuity in their lives (see Atchley, 1989)” (von Bonsdorff, Shultz, Leskinen, & Tansky, 2009, p. 84). Accordingly, leisure interests have been suggested to depict so-called “jump” factors that attract older workers toward (early) retirement (Nicolaisen et al., 2012). Likewise, Beehr (1986) proposed that employees who engage in leisure activities view retirement as more desirable because they deem it an attractive alternative to work. Again, empirical research supports this assumption. For example, the desire to pursue leisure interests or volunteer activities has been shown to predict early retirement (Shultz et al., 1998) and a high commitment to leisure activities is positively related to retirement intentions (Schmidt & Lee, 2008).

It is also conceivable that the fit (i.e., congruence) between interests and environmental factors in pre-retirement life plays a role in determining older workers’ retirement planning and decision making (Feldman & Beehr, 2011). For employed adults, a high level of fit between a person’s vocational interests and his or her work environment (i.e., high congruence) enhances the likelihood that this person stays in his or her job (Holland, 1996; Oleski & Subich, 1996; Nye, Su, Rounds, & Drasgow, 2017; Van Iddekinge, Roth, Putka, & Lanivich, 2011). Accordingly, we propose persons who experience a higher congruence between their vocational interests and their pre-retirement work environment to be more likely to stay in their job longer, that is, to retire later. On the other hand, individuals, whose work environment is incongruent with their vocational interests, will be more likely to engage in retirement planning and decision-making processes earlier. This proposition is in line with research that suggests a positive relationship between experienced incongruence and the perception of work stress on the one hand (Sutherland, Fogarty, & Pithers, 1995), and research that identified work stress as a predictor of retirement decisions on the other hand (Wang, Zhan, Liu, & Shultz, 2008). Moreover, job dissatisfaction, which is likely to be a result of incongruence (Holland, 1996), is related to retirement decisions (Wang & Shi, 2014).

Similarly, as for leisure interests, we argue that a missing pre-retirement fit between a person’s leisure interests and his or her leisure environment might prompt the desire to retire in order to reach congruence. For example, an older worker with high leisure interests who feels that he or she does not have enough time to pursue his or her hobbies is likely to retire to have more leisure time (Shultz et al., 1998). However, older workers whose leisure interests are already met will not necessarily want to retire.

Interests as antecedents of retirement adjustment.

According to role theory (Ashforth, 2001), retirement depicts a role transition from work roles to retirement roles. This role transition influences individual retirement adjustment, depending on whether this transition matches a person’s individual values, goals, and needs (Adams et al., 2002; Wang, 2007). Accordingly, as Barnes-Farrell (2003) stated, “the ability to follow one’s preferences may have implications for a satisfying transition to the retirement role” (p. 160). As such, we argue that individual interests will influence the retirement transition and adjustment process. Specifically, we propose that retirees’ paramount interest context affects their retirement adjustment: Retirees whose preferences are rather situated in the work context will have problems adjusting to the retirement role, because to them retirement means the loss of important work-role activities and, thus, of a major source of identity (e.g., Adams et al., 2002; Quick & Moen, 1998; Wang, 2007). This will particularly be true for those retirees whose retirement was involuntary, that is, for older workers who desired to keep their current employment but had to retire because of organizational policies or governmental regulations on compulsory retirement (e.g., pilots). At the same time, however, for those retirees whose interests are rather situated in leisure contexts, retirement involves the opportunity to meet and fulfill their preferences. Hence, retirees with high leisure interests will more easily adjust to retirement—irrespective of whether retirement was voluntary or not. This proposition finds empirical support in research indicating that interest-congruent persons typically show better psychological adjustment (Celeste, Walsh, & Raote, 1995; Walsh, Spokane, & Mitchell, 1976). Moreover, there is evidence showing that retirees who engage in activities of their own choice (i.e., activities that are congruent to their interests) remain in better health and are more satisfied with their lives (see Low & Rounds, 2006), with good health and satisfaction being indicators of good retirement adjustment (Wang et al., 2011).

Interests as Antecedents of Post-retirement Activities

The transition from work to retirement involves significant changes in how persons spend their time (Kranz-Kent & Stewart, 2007). At the same time, retirement does not necessarily imply a definite career exit, but can also involve the potential for changes and renewals in persons’ careers (Fasbender et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2013; Wang & Shultz, 2010). Hence, from a life-span perspective on career development (Super, 1980), retirement provides an opportunity for further self-development and new occupational choices (Reis & Gold, 1993). This conceptualization of retirement as a career development stage highlights the important role of using persons’ individual values, goals, and needs to explain their post-retirement activities (see Wang & Shi, 2014). Accordingly, interests have been suggested to play a role with regard to vocational and leisure activities of older people (Warren, Winer, & Dailey, 1981). Hence, we propose that interests will affect how people spend their post-retirement time. In particular, we suggest that retirees will seek post-retirement employment, volunteer work, or leisure activities accordant to their vocational and leisure interests. We base this proposition on the congruency assumption of Holland’s (1997) theory of vocational choice, according to which individuals seek environments and activities that match their interests. This proposition is also congruent with Atchley’s (1989) continuity theory of aging, according to which older workers seek continuity in their post-retirement lives by engaging in activities they highly value (see also Kim & Feldman, 2000).

Moreover, we suggest that retirees’ choices of specific post-retirement activities are a function of their experienced pre-retirement vocational fit or misfit (i.e., level of pre-retirement congruence between interests and work environment). This proposition is, among others, based on findings from Griffin and Hesketh (2008) that showed peoples’ evaluations of their pre-retirement work to be related to post-retirement activities. In particular, following notions on the relationship between job congruity and leisure activities put forward by Melamed and Meir (1981), we propose that retirees whose vocational interests were met in their pre-retirement life will choose post-retirement activities that match the type of activities they did at work. Retirees who worked in incongruent occupations, however, will seek post-retirement activities that might compensate for this lack of congruence.

Interests as antecedents of bridge employment.

As Atchley’s (1989) continuity theory of aging suggests, bridge employment provides an opportunity for continuity for those retirees who place a high importance on their career. Hence, similar to the way that an individual’s interests might predict his or her decision to retire, we propose retirees with more vocation-oriented interests (i.e., those who have interests that are more closely tied to vocational activities) to be more likely to engage in bridge employment. This proposition has not been directly tested by any empirical studies yet. However, researchers have found that constructs related to vocational interests can predict bridge employment. For example, workers’ career attachment (Gobeski & Beehr, 2009) and retirees’ motivational orientations (Zhan, Wang, & Shi, 2015) have been shown to predict bridge employment. Also, Fasbender and colleagues (2015) showed that the more an individual experiences meaningful work in his or her job, the higher the likelihood that he or she will engage in post-retirement employment. In addition, we propose the relationship between vocational interests and bridge employment to be even stronger for those who involuntarily retired, as those retirees might view bridge employment as a way to fulfill their need for work and to enhance the congruence between their personal interests and their environment.

We also expect individuals’ fit between interests and environment to be related to the decision to take bridge employment. As Sutherland et al. (1995) showed, incongruence (i.e., misfit) is related to higher perceived work stress. Pre-retirement work stress, in turn, is negatively related to the likelihood to engage in bridge employment (Wang et al., 2008). Hence, incongruence between vocational interests and pre-retirement work environment might be negatively related to retirees’ bridge employment. At the same time, contrarily, retirees’ post-retirement misfit between their interests and the characteristics of their retirement environment might actually lead to the decision to engage in bridge employment in order to reach congruence (Wang & Shultz, 2010).

Comparable to vocational choices in young adulthood, when deciding to take bridge employment, the choice of a specific bridge employment is likely to be in accordance with one’s vocational interests in terms of content. Indeed, Beehr and Bennett (2015) identified bridge employment as “the opportunity to explore personal interests” (p. 4) and stated that “older workers may be more motivated, for instance, to take bridge work that is consistent with their values and interests” (p. 5). Accordingly, for example, retirees with high Realistic vocational interests will be more likely to choose bridge employment in realistic work environments where they can use machines, tools, and materials, whereas retirees with high Social vocational interests will rather choose bridge employment that allows them to work with others (see Holland, 1996).

Individual differences in vocational interests may not only explain why some retirees engage in bridge employment while others do not, but also provide an explanation for why some retirees choose bridge employment similar to their pre-retirement employment (i.e., career bridge employment; Gobeski & Beehr, 2009; Wang et al., 2008), while others choose bridge employment in a field different from their previous job (i.e., noncareer bridge employment). Given that vocational interests direct occupational choices (Holland, 1996), for those retirees whose interests already were met in their pre-retirement life, choosing bridge employment similar to their main employment seems likely. However, for those retirees whose vocational interests were not met in their previous work life, bridge employment represents an opportunity to fulfill their vocational preferences and needs by choosing post-retirement employment in a different field according to their actual interests.

Interests as antecedents of post-retirement volunteer work.

Like bridge employment, engagement in volunteer work provides an opportunity for continuity in post-retirement life (Smith, 2004). Hence, we suggest the way interests antecede engagement in volunteer work to resemble the proposed way interests predict bridge employment. While bridge employment refers to paid work in post-retirement life, volunteer work is “unpaid work provided to parties to whom the worker owes no contractual, familial, or friendship obligations” (Wilson & Musick, 1997, p. 694). Accordingly, the main difference between bridge employment and post-retirement volunteer work is whether retirees get paid for their work or not. Hence, financial status might moderate the relationship between interests and choice of post-retirement activities (see Fasbender et al., 2015).

In addition, specific RIASEC interests—and particularly Social interests—will predict retirees’ engagement in volunteer work. Clary and Snyder (1999) suggested several motivations to volunteer, including the desire to express one’s social values and altruistic concerns for others. Accordingly, extant research suggests that volunteers indeed differ from nonvolunteers in their social motivational orientations (Zhan et al., 2015). For example, Erlinghagen and Hank (2005) showed older volunteers to have a higher desire to contribute something useful. Likewise, attitudes about helping people in need are related to the likelihood to volunteer (Toppe, Kirsch, & Michel, 2002) as are individuals’ social and generative meaning of work (Fasbender et al., 2015). In addition, researchers reported a positive relationship between Social interests and community involvement in college students (Hansen & Scullard, 2002). Hence, we propose retirees with high Social interests (i.e., “Socials,” Leuty et al., 2015) to be more likely to choose volunteer work in post-retirement life, because volunteer work often involves social interactions. Moreover, Kerby and Ragan (2002) identified high Enterprising interests to be related to leisure activities such as tutoring and volunteer work. Thus, we also propose retirees with high Enterprising interests to be more prone to engage in volunteer work in post-retirement life. In addition, it is also conceivable that the other four RIASEC interests might, at least to some extent, be related to volunteer work, as long as the volunteer work has the potential to meet a person’s interests. For example, a retiree with high Artistic interests might volunteer for work that lets him or her do artistic work.

Interests as antecedents of post-retirement leisure activities.

Following the general assumptions of Holland’s (1997) theory of vocational choice, we expect retirees to seek leisure activities that are likely to meet their interests. In particular, in line with our proposition that retirees who prefer work over leisure will be more likely to engage in bridge employment, we also propose retirees who prefer leisure over work to be more likely to use their post-retirement time to engage in leisure activities. Further, we expect interests to also predict retirees’ choice of specific post-retirement leisure activities. First, based on extant research that used Holland’s RIASEC system to classify interests in leisure activities of both working adults (e.g., Holmberg, Rosen, & Holland, 1991; Melamed & Meir, 1981) and retired adults (Kerby & Ragan, 2002), we propose that retirees seek leisure activities that match their interest content. For example, persons high in Social interests will prefer leisure activities that allow them to be in social contact, such as going out or taking care of their grandchildren. Persons high in Realistic interests, in contrast, will prefer leisure activities in which they can work with their hands (e.g., building furniture; Kerby & Ragan, 2002). That is, as also proposed in relation to bridge employment and volunteer work, we expect retirees to choose specific leisure activities congruent with their RIASEC interests. This, however, does not mean that retirees will necessarily engage in leisure activities that match their previous job (e.g., a former carpenter not necessarily engages in manual leisure activities). Rather, we expect retirees to use the autonomy that comes along with retirement to also explore new activities and make new experiences.

Again, we also expect individuals’ fit between interests and environment to play a role. Specifically, particularly for those retirees who experienced incongruence between their occupational circumstances and their vocational interests in pre-retirement life, choosing new leisure activities in a content domain different from their previous job is likely. Moreover, vocational and leisure interests do not necessarily resemble each other. For example, people with a social job might, despite a high Social vocational interest, prefer “things” in their leisure time (see Sonnentag, 2001). Accordingly, retirees might want to choose post-retirement leisure activities that meet other needs and interests than have been fulfilled by their job. This idea is supported by research on incongruent vocational choices of working adults that shows that leisure activities can be compensatory when work activities are inconsistent with one’s vocational interests (Melamed, Meir, & Samson, 1995).

Finally, we expect retirees to engage in leisure activities rather than in bridge employment or volunteer work if their interests are unlikely to be met by available bridge employment or volunteer work. For example, it is conceivable that retirees with high Artistic interests (i.e., “Artists,” Leuty et al., 2015) will use their post-retirement time for creative activities such as painting or singing in a choir, particularly when they have not had the opportunity to follow those leisure interests in their pre-retirement life.

Development and Change of Interests as a Result of the Retirement Process

Although interests are quite stable across the life course (Low et al., 2005), they still can develop as a result of a person’s individual experiences (Lent et al., 1994; Low & Rounds, 2006). Specifically, in their model of interest development, Lent and colleagues (1994) suggest that the initial process of interest formation during childhood and adolescence might repeat itself at any phase of the life span in response to compelling life experiences such as job layoff or the birth of a child. We argue that retirement, as a process involving fundamental changes in both work and non-work life, represents such a compelling life experience. Further, retirement depicts an important role transition (e.g., Wang, 2007) and new role demands are likely to trigger changes in interests (Low & Rounds, 2006, p. 256). Thus, we propose that vocational and leisure interests change and develop as a result of the retirement process.

In particular, retirement depicts one of the major life course transitions (Super, 1980) and is characterized by ongoing changes in peoples’ circumstances and activities. Hence, it is reasonable to expect that retirement has a general impact on the individual (see Wang et al., 2011). Given that post-retirement life is filled with plenty of new opportunities, we argue that—to a certain extent—the post-retirement phase resembles the phase of career choice and entry in early adult life. Relating to young adults, Super (1957) stated that participation in leisure activities facilitates the development of vocational interests, because the engagement in new activities provides opportunities to develop an individual identity (see also Hendel & Harrold, 2004; Leuty et al., 2015). Likewise, Low and Rounds (2006) point out that the freedom people have in choosing contexts, such as work and leisure activities, affects the development of interests. When young adults enter the workforce, new activities and related “experiences serve to deepen the characteristics that lead people to those experiences in the first place, resulting in an elaboration … of the interest dispositions being shaped by experience” (p. 254).

In a similar way, because retirement involves freedom and opportunity to choose and pursue new activities, we propose that by developing new daily activity structures and attaining new experiences, retirees might encounter interests they were not aware of while they were still employed. In particular, previous research suggests that retirement creates a large void in daily activity structure by freeing time from work, which requires retirees to develop new daily routines to restructure their life (Wang et al., 2011; Wang & Shi, 2014). Hence, we expect that retirement will provide opportunities for individuals to discover new interests or reprioritize their existing interests (see Nicolaisen et al., 2012). For example, a newly retired former bookkeeper (i.e., a conventional occupation; Holland, 1996) might join a friend in an arts class and only there find out about her Artistic interests. Or a former kindergarten teacher (i.e., a social occupation) might help his neighbor to build a pool and, thereby, encounter his Realistic interests. Moreover, because of the fact that retirement involves withdrawal from work-related activities but an increased orientation toward leisure activities (Krantz-Kent & Stewart, 2007), the relative order of vocational versus leisure interests or the mean level of vocational interests might change after retirement in a way that those persons who are already retired “might be expected to have lowered vocational interests in general” (Costa et al., 1984, p. 393).

Eventually, similar to factors that determine the development of interests in adolescence and young adulthood (see Lent et al., 1994; Low & Rounds, 2006), factors such as role models (e.g., the already retired friend who attends arts classes) and social influences such as stereotypic assumptions of retirees’ activities (e.g., the typical retiree does gardening or knitting) will be influential in determining the activities retirees engage in and, ultimately, the further development of retirees’ interests.

Other Relevant Factors to Understand the Role of Interests in Retirement

Though we propose interests to be an important potential antecedent of the retirement process, other relevant factors related to retirement planning, retirement decision making, retirement adjustment, and post-retirement activities need to be taken into account. More precisely, although interests will influence older workers’ intentions to retire or retirees’ intentions to pursue specific post-retirement activities, personal or contextual constraints might impede persons’ opportunities to select activities. For example, a musician can no longer play his instrument if suffering from rheumatism and a person engaged in bridge employment may have to cut back his or her working hours if he or she has to take care of an ill spouse (see Kim & Feldman, 2000). Thus, based on Szinovacz’s (2013) multilevel perspective of retirement and the potential impact factors on the retirement process proposed by Wang and Shultz (2010), we expect individual attributes besides interests, job and organizational factors, family factors, and the socioeconomic context to manifest as important boundary conditions or common causes for understanding the role of interests in retirement.

Retirement research consistently identified individual attributes such as health and financial status to have a strong influence on retirement decisions: workers with insufficient income and good health are less likely to retire (Barnes-Farrell, 2003). Likewise, health and wealth are important determinants of retirees’ post-retirement activities. Poor health is negatively related to bridge employment (Topa et al., 2009), volunteer work (Choi, 2003), and retirees’ engagement in leisure activities (Holmes & Dorfman, 2000). Further, Kim and DeVaney (2005) found indebted retirees to be more likely to engage in bridge employment. Thus, we expect health and wealth to be important boundary conditions of interests’ influence on the retirement process, which limit the likelihood for interests to translate into actual career or leisure activities.

In addition, demographic variables like gender and age will interplay with interests in predicting the retirement process. As for gender, ample research shows its relevance for both interests and retirement. Specifically, men show higher Realistic and Investigative interests, and women show stronger Social, Artistic, and Conventional interests (Su, Rounds, & Armstrong, 2009). At the same time, men are more likely to take bridge employment (Davis, 2003; Wang et al., 2008), and women are more likely to plan for post-retirement volunteer work (Moen, Plassmann, & Sweet, 2001) and leisure activities (Petkoska & Earl, 2009). Following our previous propositions on interests as antecedents of post-retirement activities, we suggest that gender differences in interests could at least partly explain reported gender differences in post-retirement activities. In other words, we expect interests to serve as the potential underlying mechanisms (i.e., mediators) that link gender differences to post-retirement activities.

Furthermore, age surely plays an important role in predicting retirement decisions and post-retirement activities (Beehr & Bennett, 2015; Wang & Shi, 2014): The older the worker, the more likely it is that he or she will retire. At the same time, the younger a retiree is, the more likely it is that he or she will engage in bridge employment (e.g., Davis, 2003). As for interests, unfortunately, only few studies on the development of interests included participants older than 25 (Leuty & Hansen, 2014) and to the best of our knowledge no study examined development and change of interests as an outcome of retirement. However, the studies that included older participants indeed suggest slight changes in interests with age. In particular, Costa et al. (1984) found persons over age 55 to show slightly lower Realistic, Artistic, and Enterprising interests, whereas Thompson, Donnay, Morris, and Schaubhut (2004) reported a slight increase in Artistic and Social interests with age. Leuty and Hansen (2014) found a positive correlation between age and Enterprising as well as Conventional interests. Based on these—although inconclusive— findings, it is conceivable that age may play a role in explaining the afore-proposed relationships between interests and retirement.

Several job and organizational factors, such as pre-retirement job characteristics and flexible job options, may also play important roles in explaining the relationship between interests and retirement. For instance, as for Realistic jobs that involve a high amount of physical work (e.g., carpenter), despite potential continued high Realistic interests, due to decreasing health and physical strength, some “Realistic” bridge employment or leisure activities may not be possible anymore. Further, family factors like having a working spouse and dependent children at home are related to retirement (Kim & Feldman, 2000) and might influence interests’ ability to predict retirement.

Finally, features of the social, physical, and cultural environment (see Lent et al., 1994) and societal factors (see Beehr & Bennett, 2015) also need to be considered. For example, stereotypical social expectations (e.g., gender socializing), typical role demands (e.g., “the typical retiree”), national and cultural norms (e.g., low versus high participation countries with regard to volunteer work of older people; Erlinghagen & Hank, 2005) as well as historic and political influences (e.g., governmentally restricted occupational choices as happened in the former German Democratic Republic or mandatory retirement ages) might impact the role that interests play in the retirement process.

Future Research Directions

For decades, vocational interests have been used in career counseling to match individuals with educational and work environments (Low et al., 2005). As our theoretical model on the role of interests for understanding retirement implies, interests may be likewise useful “for understanding and serving the needs of individuals at the end of their careers” (Warren et al., 1981, p. 104), and in particular for understanding the individual retirement process. However, as no studies so far have systematically considered interests as potential antecedents or outcomes of the retirement process, clearly research is needed to empirically examine and evaluate the current theoretical model. Therefore, we propose several research directions to help guide future empirical examinations on the role of interests in retirement.

Examining Interests as Antecedents of Retirement

We advocate future research to examine interests as antecedents of retirement. In order to approximate causal inferences as well as to capture the dynamic nature of retirement as a temporal process over multiple phases, longitudinal research designs seem adequate to test the current theoretical model (Shultz & Wang, 2011). Thereby, as discussed in this chapter, future studies might assess both leisure and vocational interests in pre-retirement life as predictors of retirement planning, retirement decision making, retirement adjustment, and choice of a wide range of post-retirement activities (i.e., career as well as noncareer bridge employment, volunteer work, and several leisure activities). In addition, peoples’ congruence between interests and work and leisure environments in both pre- and post-retirement life should be taken into account.

Also, as elaborated earlier, other well-known antecedents of interests and retirement, including individual attributes such as age, gender, and health, job, organizational, and family factors as well as societal factors, should be incorporated when studying the relationship between interests and retirement. Moreover, because retirement is not always a result of personal choice, the utility of interests as antecedents of retirement planning and decision making may depend on the extent to which retirement is voluntary (Shultz & Wang, 2011). Likewise, voluntariness of retirement might be considered an important boundary condition of the relationship between interests and retirement adjustment and choice of post-retirement activities.

Examining Development and Change of Interests across the Entire Life Span

Although it is reasonable to expect certain continuity in interests (e.g., workers high in Realistic interests are unlikely to lose all interest in manual activities after they retire), it is conceivable that interest hierarchies (i.e., the importance of single interests) may change intra-individually over the life span. However, because most research on development and change of interests did not include participants over the age of 25 (Leuty & Hansen, 2014), we have little knowledge on possible age differences in interests for older aged workers and retirees. Hence, empirical studies are needed that shed light on if and how interests change across the entire life span. As previously discussed, Lent and colleagues’ social cognitive theory of career development (1994) provides a theoretical framework for studying the development and change of interests. Accordingly, future research may pay particular attention to how compelling life experiences and role transitions, such as the transition from work to retirement, shape individual preferences, both in terms of vocational and leisure interests.

Finally, as discussed earlier, persons’ past interests (e.g., retirees’ pre-retirement leisure interests) and congruence experiences (e.g., retirees’ perceived congruence between vocational interests and actual employment features in pre-retirement life) may have implications for the development and change of interests (e.g., for the change of interests as a result of retirement). Therefore, similar to the afore-proposed way to capture retirement as a temporal process, the development and change of interests across the life span is optimally examined using longitudinal studies.

Methodological Issues

Research on retirement as well as on the development of interests often suffers from several methodological problems. First, few studies have considered temporal issues in retirement processes and interest development. Instead, the majority of research constitutes cross-sectional studies that, for example, looked at the relationship between age and interests at one point in time. The resulting correlational findings are not suitable to draw causal inferences or to make statements on development and change (Wang et al., 2011). Hence, as advocated earlier, longitudinal research is needed.

Second, however, longitudinal research alone might not be sufficient to gain profound insight into retirement processes and interest development. In particular, the relevant factors may include not only intra-individual aging processes, but also generational experiences, birth cohort effects, and periodical influences (see Leuty & Hansen, 2014). For instance, both the retirement process and the development of individual interests have been linked to societal factors such as gender socializing and historical influences (see Leuty & Hansen, 2014; Shultz & Wang, 2011). Accordingly, cohort effects might play a role (e.g., Thompson et al., 2004). Similarly, it is plausible that different generations show different interest patterns that, in turn, might explain generational differences in retirement decisions. Likewise, potential changes in interests might be due to retirement, age, or cohort differences (Costa et al., 1984). Hence, it is crucial for future research to isolate the effects of age, generation, and cohort, for instance by using time-lag cohort designs.

Third, as for retirement, it seems crucial to understand retirement as a psychological process incorporating several phases (Shultz & Wang, 2011). Hence, instead of merely comparing retirees with non-retirees, individual retirement trajectories should be studied. The same applies for the examination of interests in retirement. More precisely, following the idea of retirement as a dynamic process, interest trajectories contingent upon retirement trajectories might be studied, showing how interests potentially develop in response to different retirement phases. Moreover, as for interests, future studies on the role of interests in retirement should independently measure leisure and vocational interests in order to disentangle their effects.

Summary and Conclusions

With the increasing number of workers of retirement age due to demographic changes, scholarly attention on retirement as an important career stage has grown. Following a temporal view on retirement, in this chapter, we presented a theoretical model on the potential role of interests for understanding retirement and derived a number of testable propositions. Specifically, we introduced vocational and leisure interests as antecedents of retirement planning, retirement decision making, and retirement adjustment as well as of post-retirement activities in terms of bridge employment, volunteer work, and leisure activities. Further, we discussed interests as potential outcomes of the retirement process shedding light on how interests may change and develop as a result of the retirement process. Finally, we discussed other potentially relevant factors to understand the role of interests in retirement, including other individual attributes besides interests, job, organizational, and family factors, retirees’ socioeconomic context, and voluntariness of retirement. We ended the chapter providing suggestions for research to empirically examine and evaluate the here-proposed theoretical model on the role of interests in retirement.

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