University of California, Berkeley
To support research on aging, work, and retirement among late-career faculty at the University of California
For faculty at U.S. colleges and universities, transitioning into retirement often involves the daunting challenge of effectively reconfiguring their lives after decades of pursuing absorbing careers in which their identities are synonymous with their work. This grant to the University of California, Berkeley aims at helping institutions provide the (non-financial) policies, practices, and programs that will facilitate the retirement transition for faculty and serve the goals and needs of both the retiring faculty and the mission of the institution. Funded activities include support for two studies: the first descriptive, the second causal. The descriptive study will examine a diverse range of aging-related issues, including professional activities and productivity, career experiences, retirement and post-retirement career plans, and family relations. The causal study will collect and analyze data from the naturally occurring experimental conditions that arose from the three waves of the University of California Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Programs of the early 1990s. Outcome from this research promises to be applicable far outside the University of California system, and interest from university and college administrators has been significant.