Over the previous 12 months, much work has been conducted on the workforce behaviour of mature age Australians.

Both the Government’s Consultative Forum on Mature Age Participation and the Panel on the Economic Potential of Senior Australians have been tasked with providing evidence on, amongst other things, the labour force behaviour of mature age people.

Indeed, there is a strong recognition from Government that both maintaining labour force attachment and increasing financial literacy and planning in the later life-course are important for both individual and community wellbeing more generally. 

In this report by National Seniors Australia and Insuranceline, researchers from National Seniors use recently released data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to examine the different types of pathways between full-time work, part-time work and retirement. They also investigate the retirement planning strategies of different population subgroups with respect to financial, lifestyle, and health planning.

The evidence provided herein point to the diversity in retirement planning strategies amongst mature age Australians. Importantly, policy interventions should be considered for the large proportion of respondents here (over one quarter) who have no retirement plans in place.

A further report utilising newly collected data will be published in late 2012 – and will look at the types of detailed retired plans that mature age Australians have in place – with a view to uncovering the reasons why some people plan and others do not.

Download the full report below.