Originally found at Forbes

Being able to say goodbye means two rare things come together like in a Venn diagram. You need to have enough money to retire (about 38% of people approaching their mid-60s) and a job you like and that likes you back, without age discrimination or physical and mental limitations. The intersection is only about 11% of people in their mid-60s have enough money to retire and still work. Deciding to retire in a culture that praises work and makes you ashamed for wanting leisure is hard.

As a retirement researcher I was sympathetic to President Joe Biden's initial resistance to quit his candidacy and I admire him deeply for overcoming powerful psychological and social factors to retire. Older workers with enough money to retire, like the president, are generally highly skilled, and have high levels of job satisfaction, authority, status and control over their work. All these constitute big losses when you quit.

But we all fear the creepy retirement party where people whisper things like, “Should have happened years ago.” Better is, "Wow, she's retiring already!" Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill worked while in steep cognitive decline, but George Washington and Pope Benedict’s retirements were viewed as too early in their biographies. For-profit companies avoid the long-in-the-tooth syndrome. Many CEOs in the private sector are subject to mandatory retirements, a 2020 Academy of Management Review study explains, and there is no social stigma. No stigma in retiring is a sweet side of mandatory retirement.

Continue reading the original article at Forbes.

Read the original research in Academy of Management Review.

Learn more about the AOM Scholar and explore their work:

• Hansin Bilgili, Kansas State University
• Joanna Tochman Campbell, University of Cincinnati and University of Notre Dame
• Anne O'Leary-Kelly, University of Arkansas
• Alan E.Ellstrand, University of Arkansas
• Jonathan L. Johnson, University of Arkansas