[Psychological factors for planning early retirement]

Over the recent years the proportion of retired persons in the over 54 years age group has systematically increased in the European Union (EU). In Poland, work force participation rate for people aged 54-65 years is particularly low compared to other countries. The aim of the presented study was to explore psychological and socio-demographic factors affecting the early retirement decision.

The study was performed on 199 manual and skilled workers aged 50-64 years. The data were obtained by means of: Effort-Reward Imbalance questionnaire, Organizational Commitment Scale and adapted items from Work Description Inventory. To explore the risk factors for an early retirement, the logistic regression was used.

The following risk factors of an early retirement were identified: low education (primary and vocational Exp(B) = 10.394, p = 0.001; secondary and Bachelor's degree Exp(B) = 3.462, p = 0.001), low health status (Exp(B) = 3.36, p = 0.006, Exp(B) = 7.73, p = 0.002) and lack of reward at work (ERI R) (Exp(B) = 1.09, p = 0.002).

The results of the study suggest that psychological variables play a secondary role in the process of making early retirement decision, while they probably exert a stronger effect on the decision to continue occupational activities than to quit them. This problem should be explored more deeply in the future research.