| The purpose of this study was to discover and describe the meaning retirees ascribe to the experience of retiring and then returning to paid work. The study followed a qualitative research design of interpretive phenomenological analysis. Twelve retirees (seven men and five women) who had returned to paid work were interviewed for the study.; Two sets of themes emerged from this study. The first set of major themes provided the context of the findings of the study; reasons for retiring, reasons for returning to work, barriers or challenges to returning to work and why they chose to work for the particular organization or do the particular type of work in their post-retirement employment. The set of constituent themes within the context themes provided the basis of the essence of how the participants experienced the phenomenon of retiring and returning to work.; Some of the findings of this study were consistent with those of prior research on older workers, prospective retirees and the limited research that has been conducted on retirees who have returned to work. These findings were in the areas of planning for retirement, reasons to retire, reasons to return to work, barriers or challenges to return to work and the choice of post-retirement work.; Some of the findings of this study diverged from those from prior research. These findings were in the areas of gender differences among retirees who return to work, organizational acceptance of retirees' ability to contribute, the importance of additional post-retirement income, the need to adjust to a new role or status and/or build a new reputation, the opportunity to mentor or help others, and the importance of having no supervisory responsibilities or promotion pressure in a post-retirement job.; The findings of this study suggest that additional research needs to be conducted on post-retirement gender differences in the barriers to returning to work, reasons to choose a particular type of work, importance of social interaction in the workplace, value conflict in intergenerational workforces, and former supervisors and managers who no longer wish to supervise or manage in post-retirement employment. |
