Discussion on Successful retirement

Successful retirement

The transitions of old age include many changes in appearance, hormonal changes such as the menopause, changes in family structures such as children leaving home, and changes in work patterns such as retirement. The study of such transitions has grown rapidly in recent years. In the 1970s there were 203 peer-reviewed articles containing the keyword retirement, according to PsycINFO. By the 2000s this had risen to 1,804 (Shultz & Wang, 2011). Conceptualising retirement, Ekerdt (2010) noted, “The designation of retirement status is famously ambiguous because there are multiple overlapping criteria by which someone might be called retired, including career cessation, reduced work effort, pension receipt, or self-report” (p. 70). This study measures retirement via self-report. Although Australians no longer face a compulsory retirement age, at which they are no longer considered useful to the workforce, retirement is still an important transition for individuals, their families, and for the wider society.
Based on estimates from the 2006 census and the 2007 Survey of Employment Arrangements, Retirement and Superannuation, the most recent for which such data are available, an estimated 7.7 million Australians are aged 45 years or over. Of these, 3.1 million people were retired (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009). As is evident, the likelihood of being retired increases with age. In 2007, there were more retired women (1.8 million) than retired men (1.3 million). The average age at retirement for women is 47, compared with 58 for men. For all age groups over 45 years, more men than women intend never to retire (16.7% and 11.9% respectively; Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009).
Of those retirees who had worked in the last 20 years, the most common main reason for retiring is the retiree’s health. This is a more common reason for retired men (38%) than retired women (25%). Other common reasons for retirement for men include financial reasons (20%) and being retrenched or made redundant (10%). While financial considerations are more likely to influence men, women are more likely to make their decision based on family considerations. Common reasons for women to retire include caring responsibilities (15%) and to spend more time with their family or partner (13%) (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009).
It is relatively easy to find advice about financial preparation for retirement, compared to successfully navigating the cognitive, emotional, or social aspects of the transition. What does retirement mean to those approaching it? Stokes (1992) found that it means the end of work and the loss of identity in response to a society that has a negative conception of old age. This is consistent with the disengagement theory of ageing in which ageing is seen as a process of disengagement from other people (Cumming, Henry, & Damianopoulos, 1961). On the other hand, the street protests seen in France in October 2010, in response to the French government’s proposal to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, could be interpreted as people looking forward to retirement as a release from the burden of employment.
In a recent study examining retirement experiences, Kloep and Hendry (2006) identified three main groups of people who could be delineated on the basis of their experience.
1. High distress – a small group who reported one or more of a range of debilitating experiences such as major health problems, the loss of a partner, or other family tragedy. People in this group had not liked their work and they did not adjust well to retirement. Their problems did not come from retirement per se, but from negative life experiences.
2. Work as a lifestyle – a group whose interests and social networks were linked to work, and who were reluctant to give these up for retirement. This group experienced adjustment problems from their perceived loss of social status.
3. Life beyond work – a group who had enjoyed their jobs but had retired willingly, and often earlier than necessary, to have time to enjoy other activities. This group usually adapted well to retirement and led active, well-structured lives.
An aim of the present study is to identify which factors help people become part of this third group of successful retirees. One such factor seems to be social participation. This construct has been found to be related to the perceived quality of life of retirees (Bowling, Gabriel, Banister, & Sutton, 2004). In fact, a person’s social participation has been implicated in depression as studies have found that people who have experienced negative life events are less likely to experience depression if they have access to supportive relationships (Brown & Harris, 1978; Monroe, Imhoff, Wise, & Harris, 1983, for example).
Erikson (1959) considered old age as the stage of life in which we must resolve the crisis of integrity versus despair. Those who achieve ego-integrity have a feeling that life’s goals have been attained and that one’s life experiences have been achieved without regret. According to this theory, living in a society which values youth and those in employment makes it more likely that older people will feel despair at the loss of health, meaning, and respect from others. Consistent with this idea is the finding that, once retired, many people are bored and lose a sense of meaning in life (Ebersole & Hess, 1998). Under these circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that risk of depression is higher in old people relative to younger people. It may also be a contributing factor behind the increased risk of suicide amongst older men (De Leo, Hickey, Neulinger, & Cantor, 2001).
Continuity theory predicts that retirement will be stressful for many people because of the discontinuity in a central and important role and suggests that there will be an overall decline in well-being after retirement. In this theoretical model, if people are to make a successful transition to retirement, they should maintain the same activities and relationships post-retirement as they did pre-retirement in order to preserve existing internal and external structures. Older people are thought to adopt strategies to maintain this continuity and stay connected to their past experiences (Atchley, 1971). A study of the concepts that middle-aged working men and women use to understand their work and family roles (Reitzes & Mutran, 2002) supports the idea that continuity in social roles outside the work environment may mitigate the effects of retirement on well-being. Similarly, in a study carried out in Hong Kong, Wu, Tang, and Yan (2005) found that, after retiring, people can maintain or improve their well-being by spending time with families, developing new interests, learning new things, or volunteering.
A concept related to social participation, Psychological Sense of Community (PSOC), was identified by Pretty, Bishop, Fisher, and Sonn (2006) as beneficial to the development of identity, and the building of resilience and well-being in everyday life in Australia. Sarason (1974) identified a decline in the feeling of PSOC in society, with corresponding increases in loneliness, isolation, and alienation. The development of the concept of PSOC by McMillan and Chavis (1986) states that sense of community is a perception consisting of four elements; community membership, influence within the community, shared emotional connection, and meeting personal needs through a community. People who sustain a higher level of community connectedness, and thus PSOC, through the retirement transition may therefore be expected to also sustain higher levels of mental health and well-being.
We propose a model of community continuity for successful retirement. We hold that people derive health and well-being from the communities to which they are connected. More important than maintaining the same activities through life is maintaining a connection to important groups or communities of people.
We therefore hypothesise that people who have stronger community connections after they have retired will demonstrate higher levels of health and well-being than those with weaker community connections. This study will also explore whether some components of a sense of community are more important to health and well-being than others.

Method
Participants
A total of xxx participants were recruited via a research company which selected respondents based on the criterion that respondents had to be over the age of 45. In addition, the sample was required to reflect an approximately equal gender distribution, and consist of approximately equal number of retirees and non-retirees. The sample for this study was drawn from their online panel membership of more than 400,000 Australians.
A total of xx participants were in paid employment, and of these xx% were in part time or casual employment, xx% were in full time employment. When asked what age they would like to retire, xx% replied ‘over the age of 60’.
In terms of lifestyle demographics, xx% of participants were married or with a partner, and xx% had a trade or university qualification. In terms of health, xx% reported no ill health while xx% indicated that their lifestyle was hampered by moderate or ‘a lot’ of ill health.

Materials
The Sense of Community Index version 2 (SCI-2) developed by Chavis, Lee, and Acosta (2008) is a 24 item, Likert like scale that provides a measure of sense of community and its four components of membership, influence, meeting needs, and shared emotional connection, as identified by McMillan and Chavis (1986). The measure of sense of community has a coefficient alpha of .94. The four subscales have coefficient alpha scores of .79 to .86. In the present study, the Cronbach alpha coefficient for membership was .79, for influence was .79, for meeting needs was .84, and for shared emotional connection was .85.
This scale requires identifying a community referent before the participant completes the scale. One of the demographic questions used in this study asked participants to identify a community or group that they mainly connected with outside their home and family. This community or group was the community referent for completing the SCI-2. The demographic question also provided the option of connecting to no community or group. Interestingly, 253 participants (xx%) indicated they were not involved in any community or group, and did not connect with any group outside of family and home. While speculative, this may be an artefact of the sample demographic given xxx (xx%) of the participants were married while xxx (xx%) were working full time suggesting time and familial responsibilities may reduce the need and opportunity for outside connections.
Mental health was assessed using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). The DASS-21 is a set of three, 7 item, self-report scales designed to measure the negative emotional states of depression, anxiety, and stress. The Depression scale assesses dysphoria, hopelessness, devaluation of life, self-deprecation, lack of interest/involvement, anhedonia, and inertia while the Anxiety scale assesses autonomic arousal, skeletal muscle effects, situational anxiety, and subjective experience of anxious affect. The Stress scale assesses difficulty relaxing, nervous arousal, and being easily upset/agitated, irritable/over-reactive, and impatient. Participants were asked to rate each item using 4-point severity/frequency scales to indicate the extent to which they have experienced each state over the past week. Scores for Depression, Anxiety, and Stress are calculated by summing the scores for the relevant items. The internal consistency of the depression, anxiety, and stress scales were found to be .94, .87, and .91 respectively for the DASS-21 (Antony, Bieling, Cox, Enns, & Swinson, 1998).Similar reliabilities were evident in the current study with Cronbach alphas of .93, .81 and .88 respectively.
The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is a measure of life satisfaction developed by Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin (1985). The self-report scale consists of 5 items assessing the more general construct of subjective well-being. As such, SWLS is a global measure of life satisfaction. Participants indicated their degree of agreement or disagreement on a 7-point Likert-type scale. This scale has good reliability, evidencing a Cronbach alpha of .92 in the current study.
Participants’ level of happiness was assessed using the single item, ‘Overall, how happy are you?’ Agreement or disagreement was also indicated on a 7-point Likert-type scale.

Procedure
Ethical approval was obtained prior to employing a commercial research company to recruit participants for the study. The questionnaire was uploaded to Qualtrics and deployed via the research company. Data were downloaded into SPSS once the sampling was complete.

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