E3S Web of Conferences 164, 09044 (2020) https://doi.org/10.
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Impact of meaningful work on elderly people’s
intention to continue working after retirement: A
Vietnamese study
Thi Mai Huong Doan1,*, Huong Quynh Pham2, and Thi Mai Phuong Tran2
1
University of Labour and Social Affairs, 43 Tran Duy Hung, Trung Hoa, Cau Giay, Ha Noi, Vietnam
2
National Economics University, 207 Giai Phong, Hai Ba Trung, Ha Noi, Vietnam
Abstract. The study focuses on examining the relationship between
meaningful work and elderly people's intention to work after retirement.
Based on the previous research, we examined the impact level of the three
aspects of meaningful work, which are positive meaning, meaning making
through work and greater good motivations. The analysis of a sample of
784 workers aged 40 and above showed that all three aspects considered
have a positive effect on the intention to participate in the workforce after
retirement. In particular, positive meaning has the strongest impact on the
workers' intention. The results of the current study extend previous
research on factors affecting workers' intention to continue working after
retirement. The implications of these findings are discussed in the practical
aspect of those involved in the development of effective human resource
management policies to retain older workers.
1 Introduction
For a country, a rapid increase in population aging will have a negative impact on its labor
market. An aging population is associated with a large number of people leaving the labor
force due to retirement age, causing a shift in the labor force from young workers to older
workers and shortage in the labor market. In addition, this situation creates pressure on
infrastructure systems, health care and medical services and transportation as well as
pension and other support systems... for the elderly (Jackson & Peter, 2015; Keese, 2006).
Therefore, in the industrially developed countries such as Austria, Finland, Japan, the
United Kingdom and the United States, there is an increasing trend of employment
development for post-retirement workers (Cahil et al., 2013; Dubois & Anderson, 2012;
VanKatwyk, 2012). Moreover, many studies have demonstrated that older people who
continue to work after retirement are happier and healthier than those who no longer work
(Kim & Feldman, 2000; Zhan et al., 2009). Because, as noted by many researchers
(Chalofsky & Krishna, 2009; Steger et al., 2012; Lepisto & Pratt, 2017; Wrzesniewski,
2003), work is not only about financial security but is also an important factor relating to
psychological and social aspects in life that go beyond basic needs. A meaningful job helps
them feel the purpose of better working and stronger commitment. Therefore, finding a
*
Corresponding author: [email protected]
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
E3S Web of Conferences 164, 09044 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf /202016409044
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meaningful work can create a significant motivation for older workers to continue to join
the labor force after reaching the retirement age (Atchley, 1989). Meanwhile, investigating
the relationship between absenteeism and job participation of the workers, Soane et al.
(2013) came up with the results that proved the more meaningful the job is, the lower the
absence rate at the organization becomes.
Although previous research has shown that many factors influence the worker's
intention to work after retirement (eg. personal characteristics related to physical and
mental health, personal finance, demographic characteristics, job-related psychological
variables, family-related variables and retirement planning activities) (Fisher et al., 2016),
the number of studies on the role of meaningful work in shaping the decision to continue
working after retirement is still limited.
The Importance of Meaningful Work
For decades, scientists have been studying meaningful work (Bailey et al., 2019).
Studies from more than 50 years ago show that up to 95% of workers in different cultures
and careers are willing to continue working even when there is no financial need (Baltes et
al. 2012). This suggests that the role of meaningful work shows its importance in terms of
psychology and sociology (Chalofsky, 2003). According to Pratt & Ashforth (2003), work
is perceived to be meaningful when workers find it serving an important purpose. In the
field of social science, meaningful work is often described as a job characteristic that
employees value the most, with an emphasis on personal experience and an understanding
of the meaning of life (Steger et al. 2012; Wrzesniewski et al. 1997).
A worker considers his or her job to be meaningful when the goal or the purpose of the
job aligns with their own ideals or standards (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). Such association
occurs when there is a match between job requirements and their beliefs, values and
behaviors (Chalofsky, 2003). The psychological meaning of work refers to the employee's
cognitive work experience, which in turn leads to positive outcomes related to the
individual and the job. The research findings reveal that meaningful work involves key
employee retention, effective change management, greater organizational commitment,
higher organizational performance and employee engagement (Van Wingerden & Van der
Stoep, 2017). However, most of the studies have been conducted on employees in general,
and are quite lacking in the research applicable to elderly workers while, in practice, there
are differences between the job perspectives of different ages. Therefore, this can be
considered a gap that we can deploy research.
Retirement
Not only the developed countries face population aging, but Vietnam, one of the
developing countries, also deals with this issue. According to the Vietnamese population
forecast from 2014 to 2049, the percentage of the population aged 65 and above will
increase from 7.1% in 2014 to 18.1% in 2049 and the "golden population structure" period
of our country will end in 2040 as at this time the proportion of the population aged 65
years and above will begin to exceed 15% (General Statistics Office & United Nations
Population Fund, 2016). Therefore, from now on, the State needs to be well-prepared in
proposing practical, centralized and effective intervention policies and programs. One of
the proposed solutions to this problem is to attract the elderly workforce to continue
working after retirement, especially the elderly in urban areas (World Bank, 2016). In
practice, while previously, 86% of current retirees in Vietnam said they retired before
reaching the age of 60, only 32% of the Vietnamese now agree with the view that “they
should retire at a determined age and should not return to work”. In other words, current
workers tend to expect their retirement at a later age than current retirees (Jackson and
Peter, 2015). If the experience and skills of these retirees (pensioners) can be effectively
exploited, they will make a positive economic contribution. Healthy elderly workers with
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extensive work experience can support the young workforce to achieve higher productivity
(Tiep, 2012).
In the traditional original sense, retirement is a departure from public space, “social
death”. The individual ceases to work and limits his studies to the private sphere: household
chores, leisure, communication with family and friends. K. Gini believed that aging is a
source the occurrence of significant conflicts, since the elderly are more or less
professionally passive and therefore, from an economic point of view, they become a heavy
burden for the people from day to day (Radushinsky et al., 2018).
However, such a theoretical idea of pensioners in practice often turns out to be false.
Three types of retirement lifestyle can be distinguished, depending on the degree of
involvement of pensioners in activities in the public space. The first type: retirees continue
to be present in the public space as they did before reaching retirement age. The second
type (opposite): pensioners are completely eliminated from public space, and their activities
and relationships are limited to the private sphere. The third type (intermediate): pensioners
combine classes in public and private spheres. Thus, retirees can continue to be present in
the public space. Pensioners do not necessarily stop working.
Social inclusion / exclusion has a spatial aspect: a substantial part of personal
relationships and activities (that is, social connections) refers to a specific territory. The risk
of social exclusion of pensioners is often associated not so much with retirement as with
aging and a significant deterioration in health status. Features of the urban environment
(safety, accessibility and comfort) affect the social inclusion of pensioners, contributing to
its expansion or contraction. To ensure the social inclusion of pensioners, certain conditions
of the urban space in which they live are necessary, adapted to the specifics of their
physical capabilities, including: accessibility and convenience of urban space, the reliability
of public transport, accessibility of public places (the presence of escalators and elevators,
the ability to move in a wheelchair). The studies had showed that not only the urban
environment of the metropolis creates conditions for pensioners, but the social inclusion of
pensioners contributes to the well-being of their social environment and the metropolis as a
whole (Radushinsky et al., 2019).
In European countries, for example in France, despite the mandatory retirement of 65
years, some professions have the opportunity to maintain private practice, to engage in
professional counseling. Pension allows some to change jobs and even find themselves in a
new profession, despite the fact that a new occupation does not guarantee a stable income.
That is, reaching retirement age does not necessarily mean leaving the labor market and the
life of the professional community.
Pensioners can remain active in the economic sphere of society. Moreover, they are
characterized by production behavior not only in relation to the production of market
values. Pensioners' domestic work and the assistance they provide to children in
housekeeping are also included in the gross domestic product. In many countries, some
respondents also provide financial assistance to their children and grandchildren. European
pensioners, in contrast to many of Vietnamese, are in a fairly prosperous economic
situation. This allows them, on the one hand, to help children and grandchildren, and on the
other - to diversify their leisure time, travel, etc. Lack of income often serves as a motive
for the continuation of labor activity by Vietnamese pensioners. At the same time, often not
being able to help their children and grandchildren with finances, Vietnamese pensioners
are more likely than European to engage in grandchildren and help their children with
household chores. Moreover, in general, the health status of European pensioners is also
better. Therefore, thirdly, European pensioners are more mobile: they travel more, walk,
etc.
In Europe, a significant portion of pensioners is involved in the activities of a particular
subject of civil society. Public and professional organizations in which pensioners take part
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are often territorial in nature. They may relate to a particular house, block, or county. These
organizations can do charity work, for example, teaching the French or other European
language to immigrants, organizing food for the poor, helping children falling behind in
school, etc. These organizations use both the general knowledge of senior citizens and their
professional knowledge and skills. Moreover, often retired people from educated layers of
the population participate, as a rule, in at least two organizations of this kind. At the local
level, European retirees have the necessary institutional capacity to bring their opinions to
the attention of the authorities and participate in various local decisions, contributing
directly to the development of the metropolis. About 80% of European retirees named
meaningful work as the best alternative for solicitude at the retirement ages (Gorokhova et
al., 2019).
1.1 Aim and hypotheses
Thus, due to the importance of meaningful work, and the urgency to attract elderly workers
in Vietnam to continue to engage in the labor market, we investigate the impact of
meaningful work on the intention to continue working after retirement of middle-aged
workers aged 40 and above who are currently working in agencies and organizations. The
aim is to understand the role of meaningful work in the behavioral intentions of elderly
workers. Specifically, based on previous research, we distinguish three types of meaningful
work which are positive meaning, meaning making through work and greater good
motivations to assess the impact level. Therefore, the current research provides a deeper
understanding of the meaningful work that may affect the actual intention to continue
working after the worker retires.
Our proposed hypotheses are:
Hypothesis H1 : Positive meaning has a positive impact on the employee's intention to
continue working after retirement
Hypothesis H2 : Meaning making through work has a positive impact on the
employee's intention to continue working after retirement
Hypothesis H3 : Greater good motivations have a positive impact on employees'
intention to continue working after retirement
2 Applied methodology
2.1 Participants and Procedure
With the support of organizations and businesses, in this study, surveys were sent to
employees mainly through the direct approach and a small number were delivered via
email. The total number of surveys handed out is 1150 while the total number received is
928 (the response rate reached 80.7%). However, the number of valid surveys used for
analysis is only 682.
The sample consisted of employees working for organizations aging from 40 to 59, with
an average age of 46.79 (SD = 4,797). Among these, 55.1% are female and 44.9% are male.
The percentage of employees with a university or higher education degree is 43.4%, but the
proportion of people with an income of 10 million VND or higher is only 25.7%. The
percentage of employees working in state-owned organizations is 62.1%. Regarding the
working seniority, employees with working experience of 20 years or more accounts for
40.6%, those from 10 to less than 20 years make 42.0% and the rest under 10 years is
17.4% (Table 1).
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Table 1. Participant demographics (n=682).
Item Category Frequency Percentage
Gender Male 306 44.9
Female 376 55.1
Age 40 – 45 years 323 47.3
46 – 50 years 228 33.4
51 – 55 years 114 16.6
56 – 60 years 19 2.7
Qualifications Grade 12 199 29.2
Diploma 187 27.4
Degree 277 40.6
Master’s or Doctoral Degree 19 2.8
Job Tenure Up to 4 years 44 6.5
5 to 9 years 75 11.0
10 to 14 years 115 16.9
15 to 19 years 172 25.2
20+ years 277 40.6
Organization Public sector 436 63.9
Private sector 246 36.1
Current Salary Below 5 million VND 89 13.0
Level 5 million – below 10 million VND 418 61.3
10 million VND and above 175 25.7
2.2 Measures
Two key concepts used in this study are: meaningful work and the intention to continue
working of an employee after retirement. Therefore, the measurement scale for these two
main concepts is adopted from previous studies and adjusted to suit the Vietnamese cultural
context. The scales use the 5-point Likert scale, in which 1 refers to strongly disagree and 5
is strongly agree.
2.3 Meaningful Work
In the current study, we have adapted from the Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI) scale
of Steger et al. (2012). This scale includes 10 observed variables, measuring three aspects,
namely:
- Aspect 1: The positive meaning consists of four observed variables (e.g. "I have found a
meaningful career").
- Aspect 2: Meaning making through work consists of three observed variables (e.g. “My
work helps me better understand myself”).
- Aspect 3: Greater good motivations include three observed variables (e.g. "The work I
do serves a greater purpose”).
2.4 Intention to continue working after retirement age
The scale measuring the workers' intention to continue working after retirement includes an
observed variable adopted and adjusted from the scale by Zaniboni and Fraccaroli (2010).
In particular, the survey participants will have to explain their perspectives for saying:
“After retirement, I would be willing to continue to work at an organization if I have the
opportunity to be recruited (This organization is not necessarily the organization that I am
currently working at)”
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3 Results
3.1 Preliminary Analysis
The Cronbach alpha method is used to evaluate the reliability of the EFA factor scale and
analysis method (with PAF extraction and Promax rotation - The WAMI-10 items were
subjected to a principal axis factor analysis with Promax rotation) and to assess the
correlation and distinguishing values of the scale. The analysis results show that all scales
meet the requirements of reliability and correlation values (Hair et al., 2010).
Table 2. Means, Standard deviations, Reliability Coefficients, and Correlations (N = 682).
Correlations
Variablea Ma SD Α
1 2 3
1. Positive meaning 3.87 0.912 0.864 -
2. Meaning making through work 3.05 1.108 0.767 .001 -
3. Greater good motivations 3.13 1.107 0.773 .002 -.117* -
4. Intention to continue working 3.80 1.186 .584** .105** .126**
Notes: aScales used for variables: #1 - #4 : 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree, α: Cronbach’s
alpha coefficients of the scales.*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001
The EFA results show that there are 03 components extracted with a total variance
extracted of 59.65% at the eigen-value of 1,855). Moreover, the measured variables are all
highly weighted (≥ 0.5) on the concept they measure and low on the concept they do not
measure. In addition, according to Table 02, Cronbach alpha of the scales shows high
reliability level (from 0.76 to 0.86).
3.2 Regressions
The multivariate regression analysis method is used with the aid of SPSS 22 software to
test models and research hypotheses. The first model only considers the effect of the control
variables on the dependent variable. Control variables are discontinuous variables so
dummy variables are used in the analysis. The second model consists of all the control
variables of the first model and the independent variables which are the aspects of
meaningful work including positive meaning, meaning making through work and greater
good motivations. The test results of the two models are presented in Table 3.
Table 3. Results of multivariate regressions analysis on employees’ intention to continue working
after retirement age.
Model 1 Model 2
(Standardized Coefficients) (Standardized Coefficients)
Controls
Gender -0.070 0.026
Age -0.112** -0.028
Qualifications -0.154*** -0.038
Job Tenure 0.053 0.043
Organization 0.004 0.009
Current Salary Level -0.008 -0.022
Independent Variables
Positive meaning 0.582***
Meaning making through work 0.111***
Greater good motivations 0.135***
R2 0.024 0.367
F 4.198*** 51.226***
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Where: *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001
According to Table 3, the first model (the control model) demonstrates statistical
significance (F = 4.198, p <0.001). The analysis results reveal that age and education are
related to the intention to continue working. When 3 independent variables are included, the
second model is still statistically significant (F = 51,226, p <0.001). The analysis results of
the second model show (in Table 03) that the correlation coefficient R has been proved to
be a non-decreasing function by the number of independent variables included in the
model. Especially, the adjusted R2 coefficient of 0.367 indicates good compatibility
between the model and the observed variable, with 36.7% of the variation of the dependent
variable of "Intention to continue working" is explained by the three factors of meaningful
work. Accordingly, "positive meaning" has a positive effect on the "intention to continue
working" ( = 0.582, p <0.001). Similarly, “meaning making through work” and “greater
good motivations” also have positive effects on the “intention to continue working” ( =
0.111, p <0.001 and = 0.135, p <0.001). Thus, the hypotheses H1, H2 and H3 are
accepted. The research results will be discussed in the next section.
4 Discussion
The results of the current study extend previous research on the intention to work after
retirement in both theory and practice. Theoretically, the current research is one of the few
studies examining how meaningful work is related to the intention to engage in
employment after retirement. Our results are consistent with the role of meaningful work as
a guiding principle for orienting the career behavior intention of the older workers. In
particular, we have expanded the study related to the intrinsic role of work by studying
different aspects of meaningful work. Our results emphasize that meaningful work has the
most positive psychological impact on the intention to continue working after retirement.
Practically, the defined relationship between meaningful work and the intention to work
post-retirement motivates positive individual and organizational outcomes, such as post-
retirement career path planning and the organizational recruitment strategy. Firstly,
understanding meaningful work can assist in appropriate career decision making and
enhance retirement adjustment. Individuals can discuss their personal meaning of work
with close friends, family and relevant colleagues. Moreover, career consultants should
figure the meaningful work as they discuss the decisions on whether to continue working
after retirement. Secondly, organizational recruitment strategies can originate from the
current findings. Those who strongly uphold the meaningful work (especially in terms of
social and personal work meaning) can be identified as the accessible human capital. For
internal recruitment, organizations may use methods to assess the individual meaningful
work of their employees. The relevant target group analysis assists organizations in the
planning and effective application of human resource strategies at a later time. For example,
strategies to retain employees may include communicating the relevant benefits of post-
retirement employment or training supervisors to be aware of the various aspects of
meaningful work and the connection to the workplace. For external recruitment,
organizations can use the knowledge relevant to meaningful work to create specific
marketing actions of the target group outside their company (e.g. advertising to address the
personal and social meaning of work). In summary, defining meaningful work will help
managers to make effective and practical HRM policies that are applicable to the elderly
employees.
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5 Conclusion
In summary, this study has enhanced our understanding of the relationship between
meaningful work and the workers' intention to continue working after retirement. It proves
that in the present volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, meaningful work acts
as a motivation for the elderly to continue to engage in the labor market. Therefore, we
hope that this study will motivate other researchers to explore more about the psychological
mechanisms that bring about meaningful work that affects the behaviors of elderly people
after retirement. It is important that future studies need to assess the motivations and values
that drive beliefs about meaningful work, thereby determining a more direct motivation for
post-retirement employment decisions.
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