Awards

• Winner of *Finalist, 2012 Society for the Anthropology of Wo.
• Winner of •Finalist, 2012 Society for the Anthropology of Wo.

Overview

In an era when people live longer and want (or need) to work past the traditional retirement age, the Vita Needle Company of Needham, Massachusetts, provides inspiration and important lessons about the value of older workers. Vita Needle is a family-owned factory that was founded in 1932 and makes needles, stainless steel tubing and pipes, and custom fabricated parts. As part of its unusual business model, the company seeks out older workers; the median age of the employees is seventy-four. In Retirement on the Line, Caitrin Lynch explores what this company's commitment to an elderly workforce means for the employer, the workers, the community, and society more generally. Benefiting from nearly five years of fieldwork at Vita Needle, Lynch offers an intimate portrait of the people who work there, a nuanced explanation of the company's hiring practices, and a cogent analysis of how the workers' experiences can inform our understanding of aging and work in the twenty-first century. As an in-depth study of a singular workplace, rooted in the unique insights of an anthropologist who specializes in the world of work, this book provides a sustained focus on values and meanings-with profound consequences for the broader assumptions our society has about aging and employment.

Full Product Details

9780801450266

Table of Contents

Reviews

<p> Retirement on the Line is an outstanding ethnography carrying readers inside a suburban U.S. needle factory whose employees' median age is 74. As Caitrin Lynch explores the daily lives of elder factory workers who choose to remain economically productive long after retirement, she challenges taken-for-granted assumptions about aging, work, and value in late life and helps us rethink what retirement can mean at a time when economic crises are threatening state and private pensions. Its mix of wise insight into big-picture themes and intimate portraits makes the book a truly engrossing and enlightening read. It will have a large impact and a wide audience, both lay and academic. Sarah Lamb, Brandeis University, author of White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender, and Body in North India

<p> Retirement on the Line is an outstanding ethnography carrying readers inside a suburban U.S. needle factory whose employees' median age is 74. As Caitrin Lynch explores the daily lives of elder factory workers who choose to remain economically productive long after retirement, she challenges taken-for-granted assumptions about aging, work, and value in late life and helps us rethink what retirement can mean at a time when economic crises are threatening state and private pensions. Its mix of wise insight into big-picture themes and intimate portraits makes the book a truly engrossing and enlightening read. It will have a large impact and a wide audience, both lay and academic. -Sarah Lamb, Brandeis University, author of White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender, and Body in North India

Author Information

Caitrin Lynch is Professor of Anthropology at Olin College. She is the author of Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka's Global Garment Industry and Retirement on the Line: Age, Work, and Value in an American Factory.

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