Effects of Retirement

Abstract

This article begins by contrasting the romanticized notion of retirement with the cold, ruthless realities that older adults face, such as ageism and mandatory retirement, while they anguish over other matters, such as the stability of Social Security. Two components of Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development—generativity vs. stagnation and integrity vs. despair—are addressed, along with pertinent issues and behaviors that older adults undergo during these developmental stages, such as valuable volunteer experience, identity crises pertaining to the loss of employment and the desire to retrospectively find meaning in one's life accomplishments, angst, and the association between a fear of death and job cessation. The article concludes that people in the midst of retirement ultimately suffer the consequences of youthful ideals, based on diminished services and an overall sense of societal disregard.

Keywords Ageism; Life Review; Mandatory Retirement; Retirement; Social Security; Theory of Psychosocial Development

Effects of Retirement

Overview

The following passage offers a succinct description of retirement: "to withdraw from business or public life so as to live at leisure on one's income, savings, or pension" (Moser, 1997, p. 1). The danger of relying on such a simplistic definition surrounding any social phenomenon is that it might minimize its multifaceted nature. For example, the aforementioned description creates an image of linear developmental succession, and one might assume that such a transaction begins with the first "chapter" in a person's occupational timeline, during which they lay the groundwork of preparatory vocational or education training that will enhance their eventual career of choice; continues with a lifetime of hard work and perseverance; and ends with the much-anticipated concluding chapter—the land of retirement. People imagine that during this final epoch, they can reap the benefits of their painstaking and laborious efforts by discovering hidden passions (Armstrong, 2004; Daniel, 1995; Hubler, 1999; Stoddard, 1987) while operating at their own self-directed, unsupervised, and leisurely pace.

This theoretical sequence of events is not entirely erroneous, and most people do, in fact, refine their job-related preparatory prowess, evidenced in the number of students who pursue postsecondary education immediately following high school graduation, a figure that rose consistently in the United States between 2010 and 2020. By 2020, 63 percent of high school graduates enrolled immediately in either two- or four-year institutions. Likewise, there is an abundance of resources available to retirees that allow them to participate in recreational activities such as golfing (Gose, 2006) or gardening (Cubie, 2006) or relocate to retirement facilities that are constructed to resemble resort-style utopias (Volzer, 2005). However, this seamless, even Hollywood-esque, notion of retirement paints an unrealistic picture by neglecting the harsh and dismal realities that can also accompany retirement, as parting ways with one's field of choice can often be riddled with acrimony and disappointment.

Ageism

The stumbling blocks encountered on the road to retirement begin in the time frame just preceding it. It is not unusual for seasoned employees, experts in their field who should be applauded for the fortitude involved with a lifelong climb up the corporate ladder of success, to suddenly confront ageism (Cohen, 2001; Gleberzon, 2002; Kelchner, 1999; Whitbourne & Hulicka, 1990). Akin to the other destructive "isms" that are culturally perpetuated, such as racism and sexism (Lee, 2005; Leo, 1991), in which groups of people are collectively deemed inferior, ageism is the discriminatory attitude of exclusion toward older adults. The legal parameters set forth by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) (Burke & Wilson, 2005–2006; Flynn, 2002; Seligman, 1999) prohibit ageism within a professional domain and mandate that supervisory decisions be made on the basis of ability rather than chronological age. Nevertheless, the youth-oriented ideals that infiltrate mainstream culture permeate our everyday existence, as reflected through media references that characterize beauty (Gosselink, Cox, McClure, et al., 2008), the preferential treatment that fresh-faced graduates on the brink of success receive (Tysome & Hill, 2005), and the prevalence of faulty assumptions and stereotypes that are placed on people because of their senior status (Elleman, 1995).

These influences are a massive force with which to contend, and many people who hold such biases find it difficult to confine them during nine-to-five business hours. As such, ageism is a reality that many mature adults grapple with on a regular basis, a struggle that is frequently overlooked. Of the relatively small number of ageist claims that are legally documented, only a small number are fully executed under litigious auspice. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported in 2021 that 12,965 cases were filed during the fiscal year, and between 2011 and 2021, 207,315 were filed with the EEOC, but few resulted in legal remedy. In part, this discrepancy demonstrates the difficulty people have in substantiating the premise that such age-related partiality is authentic. For example, let us say that Mr. Smith is on the hiring board of a large-scale corporation and is interviewing two potential candidates for a managerial position. Both candidates have identical qualifications, profound insight regarding the future direction of the company, and positive personality traits. However, Frank appears to be significantly older than his counterpart, Dan. Upon receiving a carefully crafted letter of regret from Mr. Smith, informing him that his services will not be required due to the surplus of qualified applicants for the position, Frank may intuitively believe that age discrimination played a pivotal role in the final decision, but he will find it hard to corroborate this belief with factual evidence.

Mandatory Retirement

Moreover, "ageist stereotypes depict mature workers as less energetic, technically outdated, slow, less productive, rigid, unwilling to change, uninterested in learning, technology- and computer-phobic, susceptible to physical ailments and less able to learn" (Reio & Sanders-Reio, 1999, p. 2). For some senior citizens, such intolerance might prematurely lead them to the door of retirement, while others might feel that they are thrust in this direction through the pressure of mandatory retirement (Bernstein, 1985; Gander & Signal, 2008; Lawrence, 2008), an archaic, societally driven injunction that regulates a person's retirement at a predetermined age. Some experts feel that mandatory retirement itself meets the criteria of ageism by making widespread, sweeping assumptions about a large pool of individuals, and this belief has inspired certain organizations such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (Reilly & Tipton, 2005) to conduct performance tests that indicate each person's readiness to retire instead of relying on a subjective and arbitrarily fixed age.

"Involuntary retirement" can also have severe detrimental effects on older people. Noelke and Beckfield (2014) found that among older adults who lost their employment between 1992 and 2011, those who were laid off during a recession had higher rates of mortality than those who lost a job during a normal economic period. Similarly, the rate was higher for unemployed older adults than employed older adults during recessions. The authors did note differences between the groups in several health-related areas such as marital status, smoking, body mass index, age, insurance coverage, and so forth, but these were marginal (Noelke & Beckfield, 2014).

Social Security

Fiscally speaking, there has been tremendous speculation surrounding the durability of Social Security (Krugman, 2004; McCormally, 2005; Wegner, 2001) and the potential inability to retrieve benefits due to an uncertain or failed system. Prior to the creation of Social Security in 1935 (Roosevelt, 1935), citizens engaged in formal employment for the duration of their lives; however, at the onset of the Great Depression, worldwide destitution became the norm, forging a path of poverty and hardship. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's signature on the Social Security Act helped grant security to the impoverished older adults by establishing a safety net to use after years of stockpiling a small portion of their salaries into a secure fund. Older workers were phased out of the labor force, ensuring that younger generations entering into the workforce could flourish. Throughout much of the twentieth century, the public perception of Social Security was quite favorable, as people perceived it as a means to safeguard their financial well-being. However, starting in the 1990s, public scrutiny surrounding the future of Social Security came to the forefront (Quadagno, 2022).

In particular, three factors fuel speculation on the future of Social Security (McCardle, 2008), the first of which touches upon demographics of the baby boom generation, the oldest of which began to reach retirement age around 2008. This cohort began to be born at the end of World War II, and as the name "baby boom" (Maples & Abney, 2006) suggests, the combined elements of numerous military personnel arriving home to their loved ones and the conclusion of a gloom-and-doom era gave rise to a burst in both financial prosperity and birth rates. The dawn of the baby boom generation commenced, and for the next eighteen years, an influx of offspring densely populated society. When the time came for the baby boomers to find employment, they did so fervently, displaying a strong work ethic and high levels of productivity (Murray, 2004). The loss of their presence in the workforce due to retirement represented a significant deficit.

The other factors contributing to Social Security's indeterminacy are the low birth rate that characterized the cohort directly following the baby boomers, Generation X (Hyde, 1997), and the fact that through the process of advanced technological and medical advancements, people are living much longer; the life expectancy in the United States was 78.8 in 2013, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whereas in 1935 it was 63 (Social Security, 2005). The combination of increased longevity and fewer employees paying into the Social Security system provides the following bleak forecast: a profusion of healthy senior citizens who have retired from the workforce and are depleting the US treasury fund through normative lifestyle expenses, while the remaining generations are comparatively small in magnitude and cannot compensate for what is being withdrawn. Hence, the Social Security trustees reported in 2023 that the Social Security fund would expire in 2033, generating a heightened level of apprehension in seniors regarding the illusion of economic security they had been promised.

A further concern regarding the future solvency of Social Security and its sister programs, Medicare and Medicaid, is the relative lack of savings and other forms of income among retirees and those approaching retirement. For instance, while about two-thirds of baby boomers and older adults born before 1946 have foreseen the eventual need for long-term care (LTC), Robison, Shugrue, Fortinsky, and Gruman (2014) found that most respondents to a 2007 statewide survey in Connecticut planned to cover the cost with their homes (either through reverse mortgage or liquidation) or through a form of health or LTC insurance (either Medicaid, Medicare, or private insurance plans). Savings or investments were named as sources to cover LTC only among about 40 percent. Given the precipitous drop in home values, savings, and investments that occurred due to the Great Recession, senior citizens face even steeper odds of paying for their own care than they did at that time.

Theoretical Applications

Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development

Integral to fully understanding the dynamics involved with retirement are the philosophical underpinnings put forth by prominent developmental theorists such as Erik Erikson (Kishton, 1994). Freud (Garcia, 1995) and Adler (Blatt, 1999), who predated Erikson, also formulated renowned theories surrounding human development that emphasized milestones throughout one's formative years. In contrast, Erikson took a more comprehensive focus by unearthing the maturation process as it unfolded from "womb to tomb." Essentially, Erikson sectioned off each developmental phase through which people progress—infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, later childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood—and indicated a particular obstacle, or "crisis," within each time frame that needs to be mastered (Graves & Larkin, 2006; Santrock, 2021). Based on a compilation of numerous influences (e.g., environmental, temperamental), each obstacle may or may not be overcome; because Erikson's theory is a sequentially oriented stage model, the remnants of either a successful or an unproductive transaction will affect subsequent stages. For example, infancy, the first stage in Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, proclaims that the crisis with which babies contend surrounds "trust vs. mistrust" (Sneed, Whitbourne, & Culang, 2006), based upon the interaction that is forged with their primary caregivers; this degree of trust, then, follows them into each successive life stage.

The two psychosocial stages that pertain most closely to retirement are stage seven, generativity vs. stagnation (Slater, 2003), and stage eight, integrity vs. despair (Torges, Stewart, & Duncan, 2008). People in the midst of stage seven range roughly between the ages of 40 and 65 years, and the crisis such individuals confront relates to the amount that they "give back" to younger generations by offering guidance, mentorship, or parenting. In this stage, they are able to pass along the pearls of wisdom and value structures that they themselves have acquired throughout the course of their younger years, thus guaranteeing their own legacy. If this crisis is not properly resolved, people run the risk of becoming egocentric and solely consumed with their own personal affairs, which eventually transpires into idle stagnancy.

Volunteerism

A common and meaningful course of action that retirees adopt is the accruement of volunteer experience at the end of their paid professional careers (Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006; Kanchier, 2002; Pope, 2008; Rimer, 1999; Schellenberg, Turcotte, & Ram, 2005). Thirty percent of these experiences directly relate to helping youth, by assuming roles such as tutoring or coaching (Caro & Bass, 1995). An example of a person satisfying this developmental desire can be seen in Alice Sample, a former kindergarten teacher who did not lose her predilection for educational advocacy upon retirement. Gripped with foresight surrounding the positive effects that early reading programs have on children, she founded a literacy program titled Journey into Reading (JIR), which assembles adult volunteers who read aloud to youth in order to model the importance of literacy and establish a penchant for the written word (Vorce, 2008).

The Life Review

The eighth stage of Erikson's psychosocial stage theory, integrity vs. despair, begins at sixty years of age and lasts throughout the remainder of life. The optimum expression of this stage is often facilitated when people conduct their life review (Haber, 2006), whereby they reflect on the ways in which their life has transpired, resulting in a sense of overall fulfillment that readies them for their impending mortality with an air of honor and consent. On the other hand, unproductive articulation of this stage results in people filled with regret or despondency about the ways in which their lives have unfolded, which may manifest in the fear that they are "running out of time," depression, or an excessive fear of death. Erikson believed that, like the healthy child who should not fear life, the healthy older adult in this stage should not fear death.

Job Identity

Related to this developmental premise that emphasizes a person's overall desire to have a productive life is the angst that often lurks behind the transition from employment to retirement. In Western society, it is not uncommon for people to interlock their identities with their livelihoods (Sells, 1993) by deriving a sense of status, power, and meaning from the job duties that they fulfill on a regular basis. This phenomenon asserts that a person is their job title; a trite demonstration of this can be seen in the conversation between strangers at a cocktail party, where one of the first questions posed to newcomers, subsequent only to their name, regards what they do for a living.

Indeed, the job that a person pursues can reflect many aspects of their character, including the educational strides that have been accomplished, their values (e.g., philanthropic or corporate), the amount of power they wield, a rough estimation of their weekly schedule, and an approximation of their accumulated material assets. In many respects, retirement can be analogous with extinguishing part of a person's sense of self and therefore can be psychologically tumultuous, thus contributing toward high levels of depression and/or anxiety (Tuohy, Knussen, & Wrennall, 2005). Bobette Doerrie (2006) provides a firsthand account of the tribulations associated with her retirement as a high school science teacher, a position that upheld her reputable standing and community persona and into which she channeled a tremendous amount of effort. For her, retiring helped redefine her purpose and opened up the forum for her to ponder soul-searching and existential questions (e.g., "who am I?").

Job-related identity can also be transmitted spousally, typically flowing from husband to wife; for example, the wife of a prominent doctor or lawyer might indirectly reap the benefits of an augmented sense of self. A historical trend that was common at the midpoint of the twentieth century, before women entered the job market with frequency, was a woman's loss of status coinciding with her husband's retirement. Wives fretted over the degenerated sense of worth and reverence that their husbands had once attained through their former work, and they also dreaded the invasion of personal space that corresponded with their husband's new-found emancipation ("Now it's the wives," 1961). A contemporary examination of spousal retirement issues (Fitzpatrick, Vinick, & Bushfield, 2005) indicates that, in anticipation of a husband's departure from the workforce, couples believe that their relational dynamics will be significantly uprooted by such a life-altering event. In reality, the amount of time spent together in joint tasks versus the time spent in discrete, individualized endeavors goes unchanged, which perhaps points to the increased autonomy, independent interests, and career investment that women have forged for themselves since the mid-twentieth century. Interestingly, a contemporary point of contention cited by wives is no longer deflated levels of job status but rather an inequitable division of household labor, since an increase in free time does not seem to prompt husbands to engage in domestic chores.

Social Isolation

One of the etiological factors of depression among older adults is the theoretical or actual experience with social isolation ("A little bit of help," 2005; Lillyman & Land, 2007), which is an obvious offshoot of retirement, as the job site is typically an arena where social stimulation and networking opportunities are fully abundant. Miller (2006) spoke on behalf of Dr. Vaillant, who commented on the mental health status of those in the midst of retirement, and dismissed the notion that the sense of worth people derive from their former place of employment persists once their positions are severed. In other words, a happy and fulfilling career does not necessarily equate with a happy and fulfilling retirement; sometimes quite the contrary will transpire, since people who grieve the loss of a lucrative status might be more prone to depression. As such, meaningful present-day activities that one pursues are highly correlated with happiness, as opposed to recoiling into a stagnant and lethargic routine of monotonous and solitary isolation, such as interminable bouts of television watching.

Mikulincer and Florian (1995) studied the intersection between retirement and a fear of death. In particular, they studied the coping responses of men who had undergone early retirement from the military, as well as previous life stressors that might have exacerbated their transition. Before launching into their study, they operationalized pertinent terms and differentiated between problem-focused coping strategies, which are the proactive pursuit of available resources that might minimize stress, and emotion-focused coping strategies, which include behavior such as emotional rumination or excessive analysis and self-dialogue in an attempt to heal traumatic wounds. The research findings indicated that people who approach retirement by utilizing emotion-focused coping strategies are more apt to dwell on their seemingly short-lived careers and relate it to the transience of human life. In essence, processing retirement through an emotional lens increases the likelihood that one will symbolically equate the loss of one's job with one's eventual loss of life. Previous life stressors, particularly those involving grief and significant loss via divorce or the death of a loved one, exacerbate the feelings of imminent mortality that have been induced through retirement (Mikulincer & Florian, 1995).

Viewpoints

As was briefly broached within the scope of this article, Western ideals liken youth-oriented standards with supremacy and power. This can be seen in the increase in surgical procedures that sculpt people into chic, younger versions of themselves once their first wrinkles materialize, commonplace phrases such as "40 is the new 30" that indicate either fear or denial about reaching undesirable territory, and an overall partiality toward youth and innovation, which takes precedence over wisdom and experience. This puts our society in a quandary, considering that older adults are rising in numbers, experiencing a longer lifespan courtesy of modern-day technology, and require proper, compassionate treatment from both the younger generations and governmental plans of action that target complex retirement issues. As observed by McArdle (2008), there are many financial and social implications that can be derived from the growing number of older adults who are populating the US and the dwindling levels of younger replacement generations. For example, it would make logical sense for society to redirect energy away from increased development in childcare occupations and invest in the creation of jobs that serve the retirement community. However, this equilibrium is not being sought, which may produce dire, widespread repercussions. As McArdle remarks,

In part, this is a reflection of pay. Medicare, which bankrolls many of these services, and jobs caring for older adults usually do not pay especially well. Also, almost everyone has heard a classmate or a friend say they want to "work with children" when they graduate. When was the last time you heard someone say they wanted to "work with old people"? Children represent the future, and your own happy past. Older adults represent your own mortality, and your powerlessness to do anything but manage decline. This will be a major problem for the economy as our society ages. (2008, p. 82)

Terms & Concepts

Ageism: Discriminatory attitudes of exclusion toward older adults.

Life Review: The process whereby older adults reflect on the ways in which their lives transpired, resulting in a sense of overall fulfillment or despair.

Mandatory Retirement: The social regulation that sets a person's retirement date at a predetermined age.

Retirement: "To withdraw from business or public life so as to live at leisure on one's income, savings, or pension" (Moser, 1997, p.1).

Social Security: A program created in 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that encourages people to store a portion of each paycheck into a trust fund, which they will retrieve after retirement.

Theory of Psychosocial Development: A theory proposed by Erik Erikson that highlights the developmental stages through which people progress and indicates a particular obstacle within each time frame that must be mastered.

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Miller, M. C. (2006). Questions & answers. Harvard Mental Health Letter, 23, 8-8. Retrieved June 6, 2008, from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Premier, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=21253816&site=ehost-live

Morrow-Howell, N. (2007). A longer worklife: The new road to volunteering. Generations, 31, 63-67. Retrieved June 6, 2008, from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Premier http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=25809953&site=ehost-live

Moser, R. H. (1997). On retirement. Annals of Internal Medicine, 127, 159-161. Retrieved June 6, 2008, from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Premier, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9708282796&site=ehost-live

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Now it's the wives of retired men who are the problem. (1961). Saturday Evening Post, 234, 102. Retrieved June 6, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Premier http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=17983781&site=ehost-live

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Quadagno, J. (2022). Aging and the Life Course (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

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Suggested Reading

Altman, N. J. (2012). The battle for Social Security: From FDR's vision to Bush's gamble. John Wiley & Sons.

Carlson, R. C. (2016). The new rules of retirement: Strategies for a secure future (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

Requena, F. (2013). Family and friendship support networks among retirees: A comparative study of welfare systems. International Journal of Sociology & Social Policy, 33(3/4), 167–185. Retrieved November 4, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=88053435&site=ehost-live

Robbins, L. A. (2015). Gauging aging: How does the American public truly perceive older age--and older people? Generations, 39(3), 17-21. Retrieved January 26, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=112207259&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Van den Bogaard, L., Henkens, K., & Kalmijn, M. (2014). So now what? Effects of retirement on civic engagement. Ageing & Society, 34, 1170–1192. Retrieved December 31, 2014, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=96920046&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Welchman, K. (2000). Erik Erikson. Open University Press.