Research pick: Can academics ever truly retire? - "Intentions towards work post-retirement: a mediator-moderator analysis through job satisfaction and age"

It seems like an oxymoron – working in retirement. And, yet there will be many people who are either forced into working because of finances after they reach statutory retirement age or choose to carry on working, perhaps in an entirely different area to their career. One particular group of people who often choose to continue working into retirement are those in academia. They may feel that do not want to succumb to an arbitrary endpoint to their career and provided a role is still there for them, they will remain active in academia.

Preeti Tarkar and Somesh Dhamija of the Institute of Business Management at GLA University in Mathura, India, have looked at job satisfaction and age and how these moderate work, post-retirement among academics. They published details in the International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management.

The team’s survey of retired academics points to a need to understand the intentions of experienced academics and to allow find ways to allow those that wish to work after notional retirement to do so. This is especially pertinent in India, Tarkar and Dhamija suggest that given an aging population and a likely fall in the number of young people over the next ten years. It is likely that there will be a shortfall of qualified academics.

However given the changes that have occurred in academia in recent years, wherein teaching and research are often given less prominence for senior academics who must also subsume managerial and administrative duties, it will be interesting to see how the situation pans out. After all, are “retired” academics who enjoyed teaching and/or research likely to be satisfied with a role that focuses on management and administration. Of course, it might be that those not at retirement age take on more of those duties leaving the older academics free to fulfill non-administrative roles. Job satisfaction will be a critical component of persuading the retired to continue in work to plug the putative workforce gaps.

Tarkar, P. and Dhamija, S. (2022) ‘Intentions towards work post-retirement: a mediator-moderator analysis through job satisfaction and age’, Int. J. Human Resources Development and Management, Vol. 22, Nos. 3/4, pp.180–196.