About Us

This website is the culmination of almost two decades of research into retirement planning and adjustment led by Professor Jo Earl. We started this journey identifying what best predicts retirement adjustment and to see if it was possible to reverse engineer the process. We wanted to make the most of what we’ve learned about retirement adjustment to inform people’s strategies while they were still working. We focused on three things:

  • Finding ways to measure how much planning people do;
  • What stops people from engaging and;
  • Designing resources to assist older workers with retirement planning.

The quiz and the eTraining course are the culmination of our efforts.

Our philosophy

Researchers often take a different philosophical approach in their research so it’s worth sharing ours with you.

  1. Firstly, we do not believe it is possible to take a one size fits all approach to retirement. What works for one person might be another person’s nightmare.
  2. Secondly, there is no perfect timing to leave work or right amount of money. It will depend very much on individual circumstances as to what you need and what works best.
  3. Thirdly, we are convinced after all our research that a holistic approach is best – by that we mean in addition to finances we need to consider health, social aspects, cognition, emotions, and motivation.
  4. Fourthly, aligned with a holistic approach is the need for multidisciplinary research teams. That is why our solutions include collaborations with academics in medicine, psychology, learning, finances, and actuarial studies as well as practitioners in psychology, careers, health and finances. The science needs to match the practise in retirement planning. We focus on longitudinal designs to make sure that solutions are “sticky”.
  5. Fifthly, our research has benefited greatly from enthusiasm shared by our Masters of Organisational Psychology students from University of New South Wales and Macquarie University. Their passion is the fuel that keeps the engine running. Many of our fabulous students feature as first authors under our Publication listings.

We hope you find the resources we have created useful. Thank you for supporting our research.