ARTICLE Are baby boomer women redefining retirement? Anne‐Maree Sawyer | Sara James Department of Social Inquiry, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, La Trobe University Correspondence Anne‐Maree Sawyer, Sociology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 3086 Australia. Email: a.sawyer@latrobe.edu.au Funding information La Trobe University, Grant/Award Number: WBS 3.2508.07.17 Abstract As the baby boomers enter later life, unprecedented num- bers of women are retiring. The first generation of women to encounter retirement since its institutionalisation as an expected male life course transition in the mid‐20th cen- tury, these women are leaving the labour force at a time when the meanings associated with “retirement” are chang- ing. Longer life expectancy, improved health outcomes, and transformations in work driven by globalisation have pro- duced greater diversity in when, why, and how people exit the labour force. Many boomer women are disadvantaged in later life by their histories of discontinuous employment and care‐giving. Consequently, we argue, opportunities to engage in “retirement” projects of their own choosing are unequal across this population. This essay reviews qualita- tive studies in sociology that examine boomer women's experiences of retirement and is organised in terms of the three main approaches that inform this under‐studied field: critical/feminist gerontology, identity theory, and life course approaches. Based on our review, we posit the need for socially inclusive research, beyond the prevailing emphasis on White, middle‐class professional women; more studies examining the impact of earlier life course transitions on women's later years; and attention to the effects of “suc- cessful ageing” discourses on women's lived experiences. 1 | INTRODUCTION An ageing population, longer life expectancy, improved health outcomes, reduced social protections, and the removal of age‐mandated retirement regulations in many western democracies are changing the meaning of retirement. Work has also been transformed over recent decades. Globalisation and rapid advances in digital communication technol- ogies; deindustrialisation and the revolution in services; the growth of insecure and “contingent” employment; and Received: 5 May 2018 Revised: 30 June 2018 Accepted: 4 July 2018 DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12625 Sociology Compass. 2018;e12625. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12625 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/soc4 1 of 13