Work

Sustainable aging at work: a process framework for capability, choice and work–retirement transitions in the Nordic–Baltic region

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Population aging has intensified interest in extending working lives, yet employment at older ages is not in itself evidence of sustainable aging at work. This article develops a Sustainable Aging-at-Work Alignment Framework that conceptualizes later-life work and retirement as a dynamic process shaped by the interaction of individual capabilities and preferences, workplace demands and resources, and institutional opportunities and constraints. Alignment or misalignment among these conditions influences transition mechanisms through which people may be pushed or pulled toward retirement, choose to stay, remain because alternatives are constrained, or move toward valued non-work goals. These mechanisms give rise to different work-retirement trajectories whose sustainability is evaluated over time in relation to health, psychological wellbeing, autonomy and meaningful choice. The framework draws on successful aging at work, person-environment fit, job demands-resources, work ability, sustainable employability, capability and retirement-transition perspectives, while linking them to the substantive availability of retirement alternatives. Ageism operates across individual, workplace and institutional levels and can shape both perceived capabilities and objective opportunities. The Nordic-Baltic region provides a theoretically informative setting because common demographic pressures coexist with substantial differences in pension adequacy, retirement flexibility, labor-market institutions and late-career opportunities. Five propositions address cross-level alignment, work ability and job demands, digital adaptation, unequal access to flexibility, and the translation of retirement intentions into voluntary or constrained transitions. The framework shifts attention from employment duration alone to the processes, degree of choice and longer-term consequences that characterize later-life work and retirement trajectories.

Source: Frontiers in Psychology

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1988720