The Ever-Changing Meanings of Retirement

Shultz and Wang (April 2011) drew attention to the ways in which understandings of retirement have changed over time, both in terms of the place of retirement in the lives of individuals and in terms of how retirement can no longer usefully be taken to comprise a single defining event. As the author...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American psychologist 2012-01, Vol.67 (1), p.75-76
Main Authors: McVittie, Chris, Goodall, Karen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging
Aging - psychology
Conceptualization
Counselling
Decision Making
Developmental psychology
Experience
Gerontology
History
Human
Humans
Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Life span
Meaning
Older Workers
Personality
Psychological factors
Psychological Studies
Psychological Terminology
Psychology
Retirement
Retirement - psychology
Terminology
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Shultz and Wang (April 2011) drew attention to the ways in which understandings of retirement have changed over time, both in terms of the place of retirement in the lives of individuals and in terms of how retirement can no longer usefully be taken to comprise a single defining event. As the authors pointed out, psychological research has approached the study of retirement in a range of ways, including life span developmental perspectives, industrial/organizational approaches, and clinical and counseling studies. It is against this background that Shultz and Wang argued that psychology is well placed to make a unique contribution to research on retirement by taking forward three conceptualizations of retirement that can inform further work in this area, focusing on individual decision making, the longitudinal development process that ultimately leads to retirement, and the interactions between individuals and their environments by which individuals shape their experiences of retirement. Yet attempting to understand retirement in the terms that Shultz and Wang proposed will almost inevitably leave central elements of retirement unaddressed, for two reasons. Both of these factors pose challenges for any attempts to study retirement in the ways that Shultz and Wang proposed.
ISSN:0003-066X
1935-990X
DOI:10.1037/a0026259