Work Expectations and Psychological Distress Among American and South Korean Older Adults: Exploring the Contextual Roles of Gender, Family, and the Great Recession

Abstract

Subjective expectations regarding future employment reflect individuals’ perceptions about their future working self. These work expectations can shape decision-making behaviors and have been previously correlated with mental health among older adults. However, research in this area has been primarily focused on work expectations in relation to the labor force and economic outcomes. To that end, this dissertation examined the associations between work expectations and psychological distress among the “Baby Boom” generation (born 1948 – 1965) in the United States (US) and South Korea (Korea thereafter), with emphasis on how personal and contextual characteristics may influence those associations. Specifically, the dissertation used two large national studies of aging, including the Health and Retirement Study and the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, to address four research aims: Aim 1 explored a broad set of 56 individual, family, and work-related characteristics associated with work expectations using regression (ordinary least squares, penalized regressions) and tree-based (classification and regression trees, random forests) methods. Results highlighted the salient roles of work (current employment status, job pension benefits) and family characteristics (spousal work expectations) in shaping employment decisions in later life. These results informed the basis of subsequent aims examining contextual influences of work and family characteristics. Aim 2 examined the effect of gender on the association between work expectations and psychological distress in the US and Korea over a 12-year observation period (2006 – 2018) using multivariate mixed-effects regressions. Findings indicated a robust inverse association between higher work expectations and lower odds of psychological distress among both men and women of the “Baby Boom” generation. Further, this inverse association was stronger among Korean men compared to women; but no gender difference was found among the American counterparts. Aim 3 investigated the dyadic associations of husbands’ and wives’ work expectations and psychological distress among heterosexual older couples using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. This aim found significant partner effects among American couples; however, there were no significant actor or partner effects of work expectations on psychological distress among Korean couples. Moreover, the relationships between spousal work expectations and psychological distress did not vary by gender in either country setting. Aim 4 examined the association between work expectations and psychological distress within the context of the Great Recession (2008 – 2009) and its recovery (2010 – 2018). The findings were three-fold. First, the association between expectations and distress was moderated by the macroeconomic context and was most robustly observed during the recession and recovery periods. Second, this association varied by employment transitions and was most pronounced for respondents who were self-employed or transitioning into self-employment. Third, the relationships between expectations, transitions, and psychological distress were broadly similar but also had some notable differences comparing the US and Korea. Collectively, these findings demonstrate the value of conceptualizing work expectations and their association with psychological distress from an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates both individual factors and contextual factors relating to family/spousal characteristics, macroeconomic environment, and national contexts broadly. Insights from cross-country comparisons help inform culturally appropriate mental health intervention and prevention efforts supporting older adults during their transitions to retirement and other employment paths.