Thesis advisor: Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes / The productive aging paradigm emphasizes the importance of continued engagement in productive roles for maintaining health and vitality in later life. The word "engagement" is frequently used within this literature to refer to physical engagement with a role--or one's involvement in the categorical sense. However, psychological engagement--or one's subjective experience of a role as positive, meaningful, invigorating, and inspiring--is less frequently discussed. While there is a well-developed body of knowledge on the antecedents and consequences of psychological engagement with paid work, little is known about the role of age or age-related factors in these relationships. This dissertation begins to fill this gap in the knowledge base by drawing upon important insights from the business management and industrial/organizational psychology literature to understand factors that may contribute to and/or detract from older adults' ability to psychologically engage in work roles and whether these relationships vary for older adults (age 50 or older, n = 543) compared to midlife (age 35 to 49, n = 653) or younger adults (under age 35, n = 664). Results of multi-level regression analyses suggest that personal resources (i.e., core self-evaluations) and job resources (i.e., task variety, autonomy, friendship, task identity, task significance, supervisor support, job security, inclusion in decision-making, opportunities for learning and development, and team culture of flexibility) were main predictors of engagement for older adults as well as midlife and younger adults. Interestingly, the strength and nature of several of the job resource-engagement relationships were dependent upon job demands and/or core self-evaluations for older adults; however, in general, this was not the case for younger or midlife adults. Age differences remained even after controlling for several factors that could account for age-based differences in predictors of engagement (e.g., tenure). These findings provide a fuller understanding of the conditions that promote or impede psychological engagement with work in later life and will help policymakers and practitioners to better recognize and advocate for work contexts that maximize well-being for older adults. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

Thesis advisor: Christina Matz / Thesis advisor: Ce Shen / The aging of the population has imposed sustainability issues to Social Security, which has led to a glowing debate about what the full retirement age (FRA) should be and whether working longer is a fair and realistic expectation for everyone – or just for those who have a certain level of control over their retirement decision. It was estimated that by 2013, there were over 50% household at risk of financial insecurity in retirement. Thus, having to retire earlier might mean that individuals are in a particular precarious situation financially. Evidence suggests that in order to make ends meet, workers intend to stay on the job longer. About 27% of workers state they plan to work at retirement and 24% state they plan to continue to work until they are not able to do so. However, 50% of retiree retired earlier than planned, and only 24% of them did so because they realized they could afford retirement, while the remaining 76% retired involuntarily due to health or lay-offs. Evidence suggest that there are startling ethno-racial differences regarding retirement preparedness and planning. Hispanics tend to do little to none retirement planning, and tend to face retirement insecurity, which is expressed as high dependency in Social Security and poverty rates three times higher compared to non-Hispanic Whites. Some recent qualitative research has pointed out that for Hispanics there might be cultural elements at play. Few studies have explored ethno-racial disparities regarding retirement planning and decisions and the results are inconsistent. Ethno-racial and cultural variables are some of the most understudied variables in the retirement planning literature. The present dissertation seeks to contribute to fill some of these gaps by exploring ethno-racial differences between Hispanics and non-Hispanics in the U.S. regarding, retirement planning, retirement decisions and retirement outcomes. Results indicate that there are significant differences between Hispanics and non-Hispanics, especially foreign-born Hispanics. This as the result of the complex relationship of Hispanics’ culture and their migration experience that has been marked by diminished labor market conditions, which along with Hispanics’ lack of education and English proficiency has limited their working opportunities / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Sociology and Gerontology, 2009. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-156).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Sociology and Gerontology, 2009. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-156).

No description available.