Regional Variations in the Transition from Work to Retirement. Comparative Analyses of SHARE Wave 7 Data from Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.

What is the explanation for the early retirement plans of three neighbouring countries – Bulgaria, Romania and Greece? How do people evaluate their health at the end of their careers? Do they make plans for early retirement? What is their quality of life? The article presents original comparative analysis on people of working age in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania, who participated in Wave 7 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Based on the collected information, certain public policy issues are addressed. They include a number of questions. How to achieve a longer and better quality of life? What influences people’s adaptation in the transition from employment to retirement? Will lifelong learning and better health policies for people aged 50+ be effective in terms of their staying for a longer time and more efficiently in the labour market? The comparative perspective sheds light on interesting country specificities that need to be taken into account in connection with national, regional and European policies.• This paper uses data from SHARE Wave 7 (DOI: 10.6103/SHARE.w7.800) see Börsch-Supan et al. (2013) for methodological details. (1) The SHARE data collection has been funded by the European Commission, DG RTD through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006-028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA N°211909, SHARE-LEAP: GA N°227822, SHARE M4: GA N°261982, DASISH: GA N°283646) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA N°676536, SHARE-COHESION: GA N°870628, SERISS: GA N°654221, SSHOC: GA N°823782, SHARE-COVID19: GA N°101015924) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion through VS 2015/0195, VS 2016/0135, VS 2018/0285, VS 2019/0332, and VS 2020/0313. Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01_AG09740-13S2, P01_AG005842, P01_AG08291, P30_AG12815, R21_AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA_04-064, HHSN271201300071C, RAG052527A) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-eric.eu)