Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
September 4, 2026
Summary:
Prolonging work life has been widely discussed in countries facing population aging. We examine the association between working from home (WFH) and both the labor market exit intentions and expected retirement age among the older workforce in the UK, utilizing data from the harmonized British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the UK Household Longitudinal Survey (UKHLS), covering the period from September 1998 to May 2020. Findings indicate that WFH is linked to reduced labor market exit intentions and a later expected retirement age, through improved subjective well-being. The association between WFH and expected retirement age is significantly stronger among women than among men. The estimated associations for the labor market exit intentions are also larger among women, although the corresponding gender interaction terms are not statistically significant. Additionally, the specific domains of subjective well-being that mediate the link between WFH and the labor market exit intentions differ between men and women. These insights support enhancing WFH policies to keep older adults economically active, which improves their well-being and advances gender equality by prolonging older women’s careers.
Published in
Social Forces
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soag123
ISSN
377732
Subjects
Notes
Online Early
© The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Open Access
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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