EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Retirement: Leaving the World of Work

Robert C. Atchley

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1982, vol. 464, issue 1, 120-131

Abstract: The process of retirement begins with attitudes toward retirement, retirement policies, and factors in the decision to retire. Currently, high levels of desire for retirement and poor health cause most retirements to occur at or near the minimum age for retirement. The retirement transition has varying effects, depending on how the individual arrives at retirement. Those who retire voluntarily have little or no difficulty adjusting. Those who are forced out by mandatory retirement policies tend to be dissatisfied at first, but eventually they adjust. And those who retire because of poor health are understandably the most dissatisfied, although retirement improves health for many of them. Retirement itself has no predictable negative effect on physical health, selfesteem, or life satisfaction. It does tend to reduce activity level. A good adjustment in the retirement years depends on having a secure income, good health, meaningful activities and high marital satisfaction. Given income and health, most retired persons adjust well. However, retirement income systems and health care financing systems in America are losing ground, and gaps in coverage are widening. This situation poses a serious threat to the future of retirement.

Date: 1982
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716282464001011 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:464:y:1982:i:1:p:120-131

DOI: 10.1177/0002716282464001011

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:464:y:1982:i:1:p:120-131