How retirement fulfillment depends on pre-retirement social connections

Retirement Interview Analysis

Retirement is a period of life only made possible for large numbers of people by virtue of the tremendous improvement in human health in the last century. Prior to that, life expectancy for the average person was not much greater than their professionally productive years. Today, many people look forward to several decades of retirement after they leave the workforce. In many respects, the quality of life after retirement is a function of staying active and involved rather than withdrawing from active life (Ekerdt, 1986). In other respects, a fulfilling retirement is a function of advance planning, especially with respect to financial matters to ensure that retirement income is sufficient for the retirement lifestyle or plans of the individual.

Analysis of Interview Subject #1

This subject is a 74-year-old man who retired from a career in law enforcement at the age of 52 after working as a police officer for 27 years. Because his employing agency provides a generous pension plan, he never thought it necessary to put much thought into his retirement beyond calculating his anticipated retirement income in relation to his needs. He suffered periods of acute depression in the first decade after retirement, primarily because for the previous 27 years, his only social life consisted of his relationships with fellow police officers. That is a typical phenomenon in law enforcement (Schmalleger, 2009). After the initial period of acclimating to not having to go to work, he found himself bored and he lacked fulfillment. He experienced greater fulfillment during the first decade after he became a grandfather and he particularly enjoyed being more available to his grandchildren and more relaxed in his relationship with them than he had been with his own children. .

Conclusion

The first subject appears to have a less fulfilling retirement, largely because his pre-retirement interests and social relationships were dependent on his job. Conversely, his wife appears to have become much more actualized in the sense described by Maslow (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2009) in her pursuit of a specific interest, especially in that it also allows her to remain actively involved in productive work in the manner promoted by her social culture (Ekerdt, 1986). Generally, those who pursue interests after retirement and who plan financially in the preceding decades experience the most fulfilling retirement whereas those who do not remain active and who fail to plan ahead for their future financial needs tend to have unfulfilling and difficult retirements (Ekerdt, 1986). However, as the interviews demonstrate, financial planning is only one essential component; the other is maintaining interests, social relationships, and ideally, some form of active work during retirement.