Across ageing nations, there has been increasing interest among policy makers in promoting longer working lives. However, much academic and policy discussion on ‘employment of older workers’ has assumed an androcentric view of career and retirement, neglecting the attitudes and specific needs of older women (p. 5). Focusing on the voice and experience of older women, this book contests the popular discourses about active ageing and flexibility of employment, offering a more comprehensive and gender-inclusive illustration of the work and post-work transitions of older women in industrialised countries.

The book is based on mixed-methods research in Australia, including findings from a survey of older women and interviews with female workers, employers and industry stakeholders. Titled Retiring Women, the book's structure aligns with the idea of ‘portfolio work’ (p. 69), with each chapter exploring different stages of work transitions. Chapters 4–6 focus on the experience of working women, women in work transition and women's views on retirement, respectively. Interesting topics, including the barriers and facilitators of returning to work, and expectations of and preparedness for retirement, especially regarding finance and wellbeing, are discussed. Chapters 7 and 8, drawing upon qualitative data, focus on retired women self-identifying as not in paid work and part-time work, respectively. The former explores the role of value-creating activities beyond paid work, and the latter builds upon the concepts of biographical work–life balance and the portfolio career, explaining the determinants of balanced and unbalanced portfolio careers. The final empirical chapter provides various stakeholders’ perspectives, arguing that the diversity of older workers is not recognised by some employers and lobbyists.

The highlight of Retiring Women is its insightful critique on the widely accepted discourse and assumptions of ageing, which are strongly buttressed by the empirical evidence. A key argument of this book is that it is important for current policy making to adopt a broad concept of active ageing rather than a narrow focus on paid work. The story of Meg illustrates that women who enjoyed their retirement life were occupied by a wide range of value-creating activities, including volunteering, caring, leisure pursuits and health management (pp. 115–116). These activities promote the wellbeing of older women and a balanced retirement career, and ‘contribute broadly to the society’ (p.119). The authors also argue that the narrow framework of ‘active ageing’ is ‘gender blind’, as it undervalues the contribution of unpaid work, which is shown to be an important and meaningful part in older women's lives.

Another notion that the authors challenge is the efficacy of flexible working arrangements which have been promoted as a policy solution to an ageing workforce (p. 71). The survey data suggested that from the older women's perspective, the contribution of job flexibility is minor to job satisfaction. The qualitative data advance this argument by showing that contingent forms of employment are associated with the underemployment and precarity experienced by some older women (pp. 130–133). Based on the comparison of balanced and unbalanced retirement careers, the author insightfully points out that rather than flexibility, the vital element for a ‘balanced retirement career’ is autonomy and greater control in how to arrange one's post-work life. However, this sense of autonomy and balance is ‘built on resources of skills, transitional capabilities and adaptability’ (p. 128), requiring institutional support to mitigate potential inequality.

However, as the authors acknowledge, the book also suffers from methodological limitations as the sample of this study mainly comprises workers from the public sector and higher education, who are socially privileged and financially secure. Therefore, it prevents the comparison between different sectors and socio-economic status and is unable to understand the experience of the most disadvantaged. The sample limitation also constrains the external validity of some conclusions. For example, relatively few respondents reported underemployment as an issue, yet this does not necessarily indicate ‘under-employment is an issue of limited significance’ (p. 84), but may only be less significant to the relatively privileged sample. Beyond precisely contextualising the findings, the book could be enriched further by exploring the factors contributing to the differential experience of retirement careers, including within the study sample.

Covering intriguing topics concerning the process of women's retirement, this book should appeal to researchers, policy makers, advocates and industry stakeholders who are interested in ageing, the labour market and human resource management. The critiques in the book are also of interest to gerontologists who study active ageing, retirement and gender. Increasingly, quantitative studies have used longitudinal data to understand retirement trajectories (Calvo et al., Reference Calvo, Madero-Cabib and Staudinger2018), yet the rich qualitative evidence from this study will complement these studies further and advance our knowledge of the ageing process for women transitioning into retirement, in its various forms.