Retiring baby boomers: Enabling and valuing continuing engagement in nursing

The very nature of our lifecycle means that irrespective of their profession people will retire at some point in their lives. In nursing, much has been written in recent years of the impending retirement of nurses from the baby boomer generation (Twenge, Campbell, & Freeman, 2012) and the subsequent depletion of the nursing workforce when this occurs (McDonald, Mohan, Jackson, Vickers, & Wilkes, 2010). Although the recent global economic downturn has delayed retirement for some, these nurses will nonetheless retire in the foreseeable future (Wray, 2013).