Retirement Decision-Making among Registered Nurses and Allied Health Professionals: A Descriptive Analysis of Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging Data.

A population's health is dependent on the availability of skilled health professionals. We know little about retirement decision-making among publicly employed Canadian registered nurses (RNs) and allied health professionals (AHPs). We identified and compared factors reported to influence early versus 65+ retirement decisions among RNs (n = 794) and AHPs (n = 393). RNs, on average, retired at 58.1 years and AHPs at 59.4 years. More than two thirds retired before age 65. Among RNs, caregiving demands predict early retirement - policies supporting employed RN caregivers may reduce early workforce exits among publicly employed RNs.