On this episode of Insights@Questrom, contributor Shannon Light chats with Kathy Kram, Professor of Management & Organizations, emerita, and Tim Hall, Professor of Management & Organizations, emeritus, about their co-authored book, Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You.
The discussion dives into retirement as a major life transition—one that goes beyond financial and health concerns to address deeper psychological, social, and structural challenges. Professors Kram and Hall share insights from their book, which is based on detailed retirement stories of 14 individuals and over 200 interviews. They explore how retiring involves reconstructing both identity and life structure, offering wisdom on the four major tasks of retirement: making the retirement decision, detaching from work, building a new retirement life, and adapting as life unfolds.
Listeners will learn how alignment among self, life structure, and external context is key to life satisfaction during retirement and how support from family, friends, and colleagues can make a crucial difference. The authors also discuss how organizations can better support older workers as they prepare to transition out of their careers.
To find out more about their book, ‘Retiring: Creating
a Life That Works for You’ visit https://retiringbook.com
or find their book on Amazon here.