Early Retirement among Public Employees in Bahrain: Exploring Its Reasons and Impact on Retirees

Abstract

The phenomena of early retirement among public sector employees of the Kingdom of Bahrain has increased since 2012.  Recognizing the impact of early retirement on productivity in the public sector and individual lifestyles has promoted this researcher's interest in underlining the main reasons of early retirement in the public sector within the kingdom. Thus, the first objective of this study is to identify the reasons for early retirement in the public sector in Bahrain in relation to the demographic variables of retirees. The second objective is to underline the impact of early retirement on the retirees of the public sectors in relation to the demographic variables. This researcher reviewed the retirement law in Bahrain following an intensive literature review of empirical studies, which has thus contributed to the understanding of the study's theoretical framework, as well as its major constructs and selection of the appropriate research methodology. A quantitative research approach was adopted and data were collected through a questionnaire distributed to a convenient sample of 70 participants selected on the basis general retirees from different levels and positions of the public sectors. A descriptive analysis, a Cronbach Alpha test, a correlation analysis, a T- test, ANOVA, and regression analysis was all employed in this study.   The result in relation to the first objective shows that for men, the reasons for early retirement in the public sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain, are as follows: 1) poor working environment, as represented by 22.2%, and 2) better opportunities/own business, as represented by 25.9%. For women, the reasons for early retirement are stated as thus:  1) health reasons, as represented by 58.1%, and 2) social reasons, which are also represented by 58.1%. In regard to the second objective, this researcher finds that the impact of early retirement is mostly positive. The test was conducted on two groups, with the first indicating that the positive impact was 78.3%, with the negative impact and neutral response recorded as 20.3 and 1.4, respectively. On the contrary, the other group indicated that the positive impact was 37.1, while the negative impact and neutral response notes as 56.5 and 3.2, respectively. Therefore, the impact is mostly positive, though at the same time, the negative impact is also quite significant.