Instead of Bowling Alone? Unretirement of Old-Age Pensioners

We study re-entry to the workforce of fully retired persons, so-called unretirement, and whether the decision to resume work depends primarily on social or economic reasons. Using Swedish register data for already retired individuals older than 55, we find unretirement to vary between 6 and 14 per cent under two different definitions. Our results largely support an interpretation that unretirement is a life-style decision rather than a response to a realized negative economic situation post retirement. However, economic motives seem to be more important for younger pensioners.