Understanding the changes that occur in employment patterns as people grow older and the paths they take from employment to retirement may help to apprehend the factors that encourage or discourage employment retention.
The aims of this paper are to analyse the process leading up to retirement among older workers in France and to better understand individual factors that influence the transition
from employment to retirement. From an international perspective, France is an interesting
case because its activity rate is particularly low for people between 55 and 65 years old in comparison with other OECD countries. We estimate a series of probit and Cox duration models that analyze the determinants of the
decision to retire.
Our results suggest that gender, status and the last occupation held influence retirement
decisions. However, contrary to other papers, we find that the socio-professional situation of
an individual has a limited impact on the retirement decision.
