A Study on Recent Trends in Micro-Retirement –Perceptions & Experiences among Working Professionals in Chennai

Micro-Retirement/ Mini-retirement/ Career break is an intentional and planned period of time, where an individual chooses to stay away from formal employment. Earlier, in organizational setup, continuous pursuit of professional employment was preferred both by employers and employees. In recent times, career break was transitioned from resume ‘red-flags’ to a ‘second career’ hiring programs initiated by corporate employers. Modern workforce – both male and female - increasingly prefer to take a strategic pause for multiple reasons such as personal reasons, recover from burnout, travel and explore a new project and so on.
This research work focuses on throwing light on the recent trends in micro-retirement and its general reasons theoretically. In addition, the study employs exploratory research design to understand the perception and experiences of employees regarding micro-retirement/career break. Samples of 630 responses were collected from employees at all levels working in private companies in Chennai city. Questionnaire method was employed to collect primary data from respondents. Correlation test was used to find the relationship between perception, experience and future intentions of working professionals regarding taking a career break. It was found that there is significant positive relationship between the variables of the study.

Career break, Career hiatus, Sabbatical, Micro-retirement, Mini-retirement

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