CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

Retirement is the withdrawal or giving up office or work. According to Nwajagu (2007), a person who had retired is a person who had stop working in the office. The Oxford Dictionary defined retirement as the act of stopping ones regular work especially because one has reached a particular age; the even of retiring or state of having retired from work. Nwajagu (2007) defined three ways of civil or public servant may retire or give up his office. They are voluntary retirement; statutory retirement and Compulsory retirement. By status on attaining the age of sixty years chronologically one is bound to retire or on completing thirty-five years in the service one is similarly qualified to retire from the service. Statutory retirement attracts payment of gratuity and pension. Voluntary retirement is self-imposed. In other words, a person may consider by himself whether to retire or to remain in the service and make it his life carrier. Prospects in the service are considered and where one is not satisfied with the career or one lacks job satisfaction such person is at liberty to retire voluntarily. The sang in voluntary retirement is that where the retires has not worked for a minimum of ten years, he forfeits his gratuity and pension but if he has put in fifteen years in the service, he becomes entitled to payment of gratuity and pension.

In Nigeria, statutory working age in the public service is fixed at sixty (60) years or thirty five (35) years of unbroken active working service before retirement.  However, the Retirement Age Harmonization Act of 2012 puts the retirement age of judicial officers and academic staff of tertiary institutions at 70 and 65 years respectively because of the belief that the “older , the wiser” in those sectors. In the private sector, retirement age varies between 55 and 60 years of service and the factor of 35 years of service is not applicable (FGN, 2008). Other less measurable retirement criteria such as low productivity, divided interest, labour redundancy, rationalization etc. are often introduced and these have exacerbated the already negative attitude the Nigerian workers have for retirement. Recent studies (Glenn, 2005) have shown that labour in private and public sectors are noted for their significant contributions to socio-economic development in Nigeria. Globally, government recognizes that between the service years and retirement, workers are considered most energetic and useful as their labor time are spent for their employer(s). As a reward for their significant and contribution to the economy, government in both developed and developing countries provide retirees access to formal system of retirement income support . In Nigeria, its popularly called employee benefits in the form of pension and gratuity as a reward for workers meritorious service to the nation. According to Kolawole and Mallum (2004) retirement pension is typically one of the largest social security component of public interventions for the retired public civil servants.

1. 1. This material content is developed to serve as a GUIDE for students to conduct academic research work
2. 2. As a source for additional understanding of the subject.
3. 3. As a source for ideas for your own research work (if properly referenced).
4. 4. For PROPER paraphrasing (see your university definition of plagiarism and acceptable paraphrase)
5. 5. Direct citing (if referenced properly)
Thank you so much for your respect to the authors copyright.