Three Temple University Fox School of Business professors have developed a model that helps predict whether a person who loses his or her job will delay retirement in a study titled “Exploring the Impact of Demographic, Personality, and Job Reattainment Variables on Unemployment-Delayed Retirement Intent (UDRI).”

Their unique sample of long-term unemployed with high income and educational levels provides a new lens on the severity of economic conditions, with survey respondents commenting that, “I cannot retire … ever … I have spent all my money trying to survive until this nightmare is over” and “I have lost my savings, retirement, credit rating and 95 percent of my friends and some family members.”

Human Resource Management Professor Gary Blau, Assistant Professor Tony Petrucci and Associate Professor John McClendon found that a person’s Unemployment Delayed Retirement Intent (UDRI) is associated with his or her age, duration of unemployment, number of dependents, degree of denial of job loss, and perceptions of poor job-reattainment prospects.

The research sheds new light on a recent jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor that shows an increase in the proportion of Americans older than age 55 in the workforce due to the financial realities of baby boomers who are being laid off and living longer.

“It’s highly concerning that the long-term unemployed are experiencing longer and stronger denial than normal,” Petrucci said. “Typically denial is an early stage coping mechanism, but in this case it has extended. This suggests that people still can’t deal with the severity of their layoff and the impact it has had on them and their perceived inability to retire when planned.”