

McGuinn Hall 321
Telephone: 617-552-1366
Email: cal.halvorsen@bc.edu
Productive engagement in later life, with emphasis on work, self-employment, entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, and encore careers; returning to school past midlife; charitable giving and nonprofit sustainability.
Cal J. Halvorsen, PhD, MSW, is an assistant professor at the Boston College School of Social Work. His research interests include the antecedents, experiences, and outcomes of longer working lives, with emphasis on later-life self-employment and entrepreneurship, encore careers, and older adults as social innovators. Cal was selected as an inaugural member of the 2018-2019 Encore Public Voices Fellowship and has taught courses related to aging societies, social work practice, and research methods at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Cal worked for six years at Encore.org, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging people in midlife and beyond in paid and unpaid work that improves the world, later serving as the organization’s director of research and evaluation. During this time, Cal was invited to present at the University of Oxford in the U.K., as well as the Körber Foundation and EBS Universität in Germany. He is a graduate of both the MSW (2008) and PhD (2018) programs at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, and earned his BA from the University of Iowa in his hometown of Iowa City.
Halvorsen, C., & Chen, Y. C. (2019). The diversity of interest in later-life entrepreneurship: Results from a nationally representative survey of Americans aged 50 to 70. PLoS ONE, 14(6). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0217971
Matz-Costa, C., Berzin, S., Pitt-Catsouphes, M., & Halvorsen, C. (2019). Perceptions of the meaningfulness of work among older social purpose workers: An ecological momentary assessment study. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 38(8), 1121-1146. doi: 10.1177/0733464817727109
Halvorsen, C. (2017). Bridging social innovation and social work: Balancing science, values, and speed. Research on Social Work Practice, 27(2), 129-130. doi:10.1177/1049731516658353
Halvorsen, C. & Morrow-Howell, N. (2017). A conceptual framework on self-employment in later life: Toward a research agenda. Work, Aging and Retirement, 3(4), 313-324. doi:10.1093/workar/waw031
Morrow-Howell, N., Halvorsen, C., Hovmand, P., Lee, C., & Ballard, E. (2017). Conceptualizing productive engagement in a system dynamics framework. Innovation in Aging, 1(1). doi:10.1093/geroni/igx018
Pitt-Catsouphes, M., McNamara, T., James, J., & Halvorsen, C. (2017). Innovative pathways to meaningful work: Older adults as volunteers and self-employed entrepreneurs. In J. McCarthy & E. Parry (Eds.), Age diversity and work (pp. 195-224). London: Palgrave-Macmillan. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-46781-2_9
Pitt-Catsouphes, M., Berzin, S., McNamara, T., Halvorsen, C., & Emerman, J. (2016). The impact of The Purpose Prize: Exploring a method to stimulate social entrepreneurship. Journal of Enterprising Culture, 24(2), 133-167. doi:10.1142/S0218495816500060
Halvorsen, C. & Emerman, J. (2014, Winter). The encore movement: Baby boomers and older adults building community. Generations, 37(4), 33-39. Online.
Halvorsen, C., Bank, D., & Emerman, J. (2011). Encore entrepreneurs: Creating jobs, meeting needs. San Francisco: Civic Ventures.
May 2017: Dissertation Fellowship in Retirement Research, funded by the U.S. Social Security Administration and administered by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Awarded: $28,000.
January 2013: Research manager (with Marc Freedman & Jim Emerman, Co-PIs) of funding from the John Templeton Foundation. “Promoting Sir John Templeton’s Vision of Purpose in Retirement: From the Purpose Prize to Encore Careers.” Awarded: $5,000,000. Role: Developed research proposal for multi-program grant.
August 2018: Selected to be an inaugural member of the Encore Public Voices Fellowship, sponsored by The OpEd Project and Encore.org.
June 2018: Elected to the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGESW) board of directors.
August 2014–May 2018: Served as an Encore Research Fellow, sponsored by Encore.org.
October 2015–October 2017: Served as the William E. Gordon Research Fellow at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis.
December 2015: Selected to be an ambassador for the Gerontological Society of America at the Symposium on Healthy Aging in Suzhou, China.
The Washington Post: You've stopped working. Now go out and make money. (September 2019)
The New York Times: When retirement savings run short, freelancing fills the gaps. (September 2019)
BBC News: Why US firms are desperate to retain ageing workers. (August 2019)
WGBH Greater Boston: Almost half Of Americans plan to retire after 65—or never (July 2019)
PBS Next Avenue and Forbes: How to fix racial disparities in entrepreneurship over 50 (July 2019)
PBS Next Avenue and Forbes: How important is a presidential candidate’s age? (July 2019)
Fast Company: Why we need to be honest about the risks of entrepreneurship (November 2018)
On the Brink with Andi Simon: A whole new way to grow old and have fun (September 2018)