"This project carries out a comparative investigation of retirement behaviour in Austria and Germany. Drawing on the theoretical concept of ‘pathways to retirement’ (Kohli & Rein 1991) it examines individual trajectories leading to labour market exit both through policy-analysis as well as empirically. The project proposes an interdisciplinary analytical approach and mix of methods. The empirical bases are process-produced work history data spanning over 30 years (linked employer-employee data). A novel sequence-based statistical technique is used to identify empirical typologies of common ‘pathways to retirement’, subsequently used as input in explanatory models of retirement behaviour. The scientific objective is to contribute to our knowledge about the determinants of different retirement behaviours, taking account of a wide, interdisciplinary array of mechanisms through which people allocate to different ‘pathways to retirement’. The project is tailored as to allow the postdoctoral research fellow to reach well-defined objectives in terms of skill acquisition and career advancement. It will allow her to obtain the practical skills necessary for the use of administrative data in applied labour market research and to further advance her skills in econometric evaluation research. Both of these skills have become crucial assets for labour market researchers in public and private institutions."