Prospective Drivers of Nurses’ Partial or Complete Retirement Seven Years Later: Work Ability and Physical Functioning Going against the Tide of Age

In the context of a nursing shortage in many developed countries, one option for retaining the expertise of older nurses in the workforce is to better manage the retirement of nurses. This study will investigate life course predictors of actual retirement behavior, whether partial or complete, for older working nurses over a seven-year span. Data were analyzed from a quantitative, longitudinal survey of 178 Australian nurses aged 45 years and older working at Time 1 (2012), who responded seven years later (Time 2). Age predicted both forms of retirement behavior, confirming the strength of social normative pressures toward retirement. Moving against this social normative tide toward retirement were the predictors of partial retirement such as job satisfaction, physical functioning and work ability. In turn, working part-time was the only predictor, beyond age, of complete retirement. Nurse and health service managers could support nurses to stand against the tide of social normative pressures (until such social norms change) by managing the nurses’ physical functioning and work ability, including by more explicitly managing the impacts of chronic diseases in the workplace, not least so as to retain their nurses in the context of nurse shortages.