Not so big jobs and retirements: What workers (and retirees) really want

Most workers would like to put in fewer hours on the job, and most retirees, at least those in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, would like to have a job, but not work full time, according to a number of studies (e.g., Clarkberg and Moen, 2001; Jacobs and Gerson, 2004; Pitt-Catsouphes and Smyer, 2006). But the gap between actual hours worked and work-hour preferences is smallest lor older workers (Galinsky et al., 2005). Docs this mean that older workers are the most satisfied with their work hours? Economists explain why people make choices, and sociologists contend that people have no choices to make - or at least very' few. Somewhere in between are what I temi "strategic selections" as people seek a better life-course fit between their wants and needs, (>n the one hand, and the resources and options available to them on the other (Moen and Chermack, 2005; Moen and Spencer, 2006). Workers in their 50s and 60s who would like to put in fewer hours typically seebut two options: remain in their full-time, often fifty-to-sixty-hour-a-week jobs, or else cross over into die full-time leisure of retirement. In the Cornell Retirement and Well-Being Study (Moen et al., 2000), for example, we found diat, compared to older workers who are satisfied with their job hours, older workers who wanted to work fewer hours are more apt to opt out, retiring within the next two years. Retirees who cannot find jobs fitting their preferences or needs are more apt to remain out of die workforce. The result? Processes of strategic selection mean that older workers who are dissatisfied with their longhour jobs are simply voting with their feet by retiring- and dius are not to be found in workforce surveys. And yet that is not necessarily dieir preference- diey simply cannot find what diey would term good jobs widi the flexibility and working hours diey want and need. A central issue confronting older workers and retirees, as well as social service organizations, government policy makers, and corporations, is precisely diis mismatch between the accepted chronology of jobs and retirement (e.g., Kohli, 1986) and die preferences and needs of employees and retirees. Americans have inherited inflexible, built-in time frames and sequences that are based on the workforce, jobs, and retirement prospects of the mid-twentieth century. This invisible architecture of time is very much out of date. It is easy to see the obsolescence of a physical structure- a building, for example. But there is also obsolescence in what I call the architec- ture of time, a social reality that may be invisible but nevertheless affects die amount of time Americans spend on various activities as well as where and when they engage in them. I envision this architecftire as "cages," with each day, week, and year consisting of institutionalized time clocks, the most pervasive being those of paid work. The architecture of time also represents something of a "convoy" or tunnel: an institutionalized chronology that shifts widi age over the life course, constraining employment, retirement, service, family caregiving, and leisure options at different ages and life stages. These entities can be seen in their effects- the patterned ways Americans create rush-hour traffic jams on weekday mornings and evenings, for example, or the fact that most 40-year-olds are in the workforce while most 70-year-olds are retired. ONE SIZE FITS ALL: BIG JOBS AND BIG CAREER PATHS While I was growing up, on the rare occasions when we would be shopping for a (used) car, I would lobby for something flashy. My father would always quote Henry Ford: "You can have any color you want, so long as it is black. " Today one can choose all kinds of colors and styles, but until recendy what was under the hood was pretty much standardized, regardless of make or model. Americans shopping for private transportation could have any vehicle they wanted, so long as it was fueled by oil. And preferably big, so big that many are not even called cars any more, but rather, they are "sports utility vehicles. …