oa De relatie tussen employability en de intentie tot langer doorwerken

A study on the relationship between employability and the retirement intentions of older workers

Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 24, November 2011, nr. 4, pp. 374-391.Very recently, it has been decided that the retirement age in the Netherlands will increase to 66 in 2020. Therefore, it is more and more important to understand what motivates older employees to work until their pension age (as opposed to quitting the workforce prematurely). In this study, among 151 Dutch employees of 45 years and older, the central aim was to examine the relationships between workers’ employability perceptions and their intention to work until their retirement age. Additionally, we have investigated to what extent ‘the learning value of the job’, ‘participation in training and education’, and ‘career management’ relate to workers’ employability perceptions. Results of Structural Equation Modelling showed that employability is a significant predictor of the intention to work until retirement age. Moreover, our results indicated that ‘learning value of the job’ and ‘participation in training and education in adjacent area’s’ are important antecedents of one’s employability. The main conclusion of this study is that the higher older employees’ perceptions regarding their own employability, the stronger their intention to work until the official pension age will be. Moreover, a solid learning value of the job as well as possibilities for training in adjacent areas will contribute positively to the employability perceptions of older employees.