Avoiding Retirement in Chile: Extending Working Lives in an Uncertain and Precarious Context

Drawing on life-course, gender, and welfare regime theories and relying on primary longitudinal qualitative data (life- story interviews with 90 older workers) and primary longitudinal quantitative data (life-course calendar surveys among 802 older individuals), Avoiding Retirement in Chile critically examines the generalizability of traditional age norms involving the transition to retirement within a persistently uncertain and precarious setting.

Grounded in systematic empirical evidence, this study allows us to reflect on the fact that a definitive and permanent exit from any form of economic activity is increasingly viewed as a fictional scenario by most older individuals. This arises not only from highly precarious social conditions but also from a complex process involving individual agency, wherein the status of being 'retired' is progressively less voluntarily anticipated.

As such, it is of significant interest to a broad spectrum of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as scholars across various disciplines, including social sciences, economics, humanities, gerontology, public health, and social epidemiology. Additionally, the book targets policymakers and decision-makers engaged in topics such as aging, the labor market, pension systems, social and health inequality, and life-course determinants of disparities in old age.

Ignacio Cabib is Interdisciplinary Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Health at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile. His main academic interests are the life-course approach, health and social inequalities in old age, cross-national studies, extended working lives, and research methods. Thanks to the support of national and international networks, over the past 15 years he has conducted an agenda that aims to understand how employment, family, and health disadvantages and advantages over the life-course impact multiple later-life inequalities across countries with different welfare regime orientations.