Preretirement - A Changing Pattern
There are mixed trends in the thinking about earlier and earlier retirement. On the one hand, automation is pushing toward the earlier retirement of those people who are being replaced by machi and in those situations where there is need to spread jobs around. There are pressures to retire men early to give the new generation chance. On the other hand, some people are just beginning to reach the peak of their skill, creativity, and wisdom as early retirement forces a change. Psychologically, there are, no doubt, some people whose personality favors a do-little kind of life; but the many studies of boredom and of how people spend their leisure indicate that havln little or nothing to do may bring on problems.
Leisure time (free time after subtracting working time, sleeping, eating, and other essential activity) has increased from three hour 1870, to five hours in 1910, and up to eight hours in 1960. It has been estimated that it will not be long before half of the twenty-four-hou day is leisure time. What do people do with this time? Most survey show entertainment to be well in the lead. Almost three-quarters a leisure time is so invested. To some, leisure time is a myth. It may b better thought of as time for creative expression. Planning for leisure may be psychologically the same in some respects as planning f retirement.
Criteria for Retirement
"Aging, true physiological aging, is not determined by the time elapsed since birth, but by the total amount of wear and tear to which the body has been exposed. There is, indeed, a great differen between physiologic and chronological age." These words of Han, Selye, who has worked on the problems of aging and the stress of IIf for over three decades, give us a key to the problem of how long any given individual should continue to work. Measuring physiological psychological age is most difficult. Forces other than "the good of th
individual" have set standards. After all, chronological age is easy to determine, and it does give us a universal standard.
The magic age of sixty-five for retirement came about originally as a base for social security legislation. It was lowered to sixty·two for women' shortly after the Social Security Act was passed. One may question the logic of this type of differentiation. It could hardly have been made because women outlive men by some four years. Under various conditions and with some options one, of course, may, and in some instances must, retire before sixty·five or sixty-two. The trend, however, toward lower retirement ages continues to increase. Most Americans never retire. They are either forced out of work or they die before retirement. Of those who retire, some 25 percent try to find new work. There is not a great deal of retirement moonlighting, particularly among those receiving society security.
Preparation for Retirement
Most of those who work up to the last possible day, then face the problem of no longer being employed, feel the retirement impact. Some organizations now have planned programs of preretirement counseling, seminars, and easing-up practices in which the person gradually gets used to doing less. Such job decompression programs are helpful for some people.
Social attitudes toward old age are generally unfavorable, causing some people to delay, even resist, preparation for approaching old age, except for building up financial reserve in pensions. There is realization of the chance of having physical handicaps, but usually less attention is given to the psychological aspects of a feeling of uselessness, inactivity, loneliness, and boredom. One elderly woman in England reported that she was sorry when it was no longer necessary to queue up for buying groceries because "I had someone to talk to."
It is possible to predict in middle age, even sooner in some people, what kind of adjustment the person will make in old age. For those who have sought change, or at least showed only token resistance to it, and who have health, financial security, and companionchip, old age can be a time of happiness. For some it is a time for enjoying the results of one's labors. It is a time of independence, when the person is no longer driven by ambition and regulated by work. It is a time to enjoy the prestige of wisdom, the loyalty and devotion of family. In a community where leisure is a status symbol of success, the elderly have priority. But, one may ask, what are the chances that these favorable factors will fall my way?
Individuals who are psychologically tough and resilient have learned patterns of adjustment that are useful in their declining years. They are, by and large, people who see themselves as active agents in their own progress, who are not willing to leave their futur, in the hands of others. These are the people who prepare for retirA. ment psychologically as well as physically and economically. They the individuals who see that preparation during middle age can lessen the impact of retirement. They are the people who understand that in some settings the older person can be hit by a "youthquake" and stm survive.
Preparation for retirement involves a measure of prethlnkin about the questions one should consider months in advance of actu retirement. Many questions center on physical health and financial problems. Social Security offices across the countrf have written material, kept up to date, dealing with a wide variety of questions an answers in these areas. Here we wish to consider three factors and add some questions that may help persons think ahead on problems. psychological adjustment to retirement.
Three Basic Factors
Planning for retirement is quite individualistic, but for all of us thr basic factors may well be involved. First, we need to look at our individual personality. The relatively lazy, procrastinating type of person has less difficulty in filling time than does th person who has lived a life of 'hard, time-consuming work. upward mobile individual may find that he or she really has no plac to go: The indifferent person may not pay too much attention to prethinking on retirement; whatever will be, will be. The person who could always spend leisure time putterin'g around may find this trait an advantage in retirement. Second, how well one adjusts to retirement relates to previous life-style. The person who needs stimulation from others for motivational purposes has built a life-style according· ly. The loner has developed a behavior style more in line with self-motivated activities. Some people need to feel out new sltuatio gradually. Here, partial retIrement strung out over a period of time may lessen retirement shock. This is the concept involved in job decompression where one gradually slows down from the pressures of the work environment. An analysis of life-style can help determin those aspects of behavior that will have to change with retirement. Third, our previous habit of riding with change is related to adjust· ment in retirement. Persons who have thrived on change, who have repeatedly sought out new types of situations to adjust to, have advantage over those. who have strongly resisted change.
