So, further research examining the motivating factors to prolong working life among different groups is recommended.
As mentioned before, it is important to encourage workers not to take early retirement, but to prolong working life instead.
This was supported by the interviews among the workers, where pleasure at work was mentioned frequently as a motive to prolong working life.
The aim of this study was to examine the reasons for voluntary early retirement as well as for prolonging working life after the official retirement age.
As far as the authors are aware, there are only limited data as to the motives of employees for prolonging working life.
From the interviews and the workshop, five themes were identified as important motives to prolong working life: challenges at work, social contacts, reward and appreciation, health, and competencies and skills.
However, although good health and other personal factors are important in prolonging working life, these factors are part of nursing staff members' personal context and predominantly beyond the reach of employers.
The willingness and ability to prolong working life is measured by asking two open ended items from the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey 2010 [ 62]: Until what age do you (1) think you are able to continue working, and (2) want to continue working?
Based on the limited literature on the determinants for prolonging working life, and the scarcity of qualitative data, the aims of the present study were: (1) to examine the reasons for voluntary early retirement; (2) to examine the motives for continuing working life after the official retirement age; and (3) to examine the predictive value of the reasons mentioned.
As mentioned before, the few previous studies regarding the reasons for early retirement and prolonging working life have mostly used quantitative research methods.
Both Study 2 and Study 3 were performed to get insight into the motivating factors for continuing to work and the measures that can be taken to stimulate prolonging working life.
