Concurrent change in planned and preferred age for retirement.

Studies of older workers' readiness to retire have reported a growing trend toward plans or expectations for earlier retirement. At the same time, other studies have shown that as workers age they prefer progressively later ages for retirement. To clarify the relationship between planned and preferred age for retirement, concurrent trends in the two measures for a single sample of male workers were compared. At two sampling times 10 years apart, a panel of 912 workers (aged 45 to 74 at T2) was asked at what age they planned to retire and at what age they preferred to retire. The pattern of joint change in these two measures showed a dynamic relationship between them. Even though panel members generally preferred to retire sooner than they planned to, preferences were revised (toward later ages) over time and tended to converge with the planned age for withdrawal from work.