Dread Retirement or Counting the Days to Freedom?

Hi Readers, as most of you know, I teach at Capella University and I am biased but I think I have the greatest bunch of SMART students of any professor around. For example, this article was reviewed by one of my gerontology students last year and I find it fascinating. Why do some workers DREAD retirement and some absolutely cannot wait until they are "free" to get away from the grind and "start living." What gives?

A study by Patricia Drentea, PhD, of the University of Alabama-Birmingham (yes!!) may explain it. Published in the Journal of Aging and Health in 2002, Drentea sought to understand retirement on mental health among older workers. Drentea, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, wanted to know how inequality impacts physical and mental health in retirement.

According to Drentea (2002), work is both empowering and alienating. Workers in empowering jobs have "power" and autonomy including self-direction, decision-making, sense of importance, problem-solving, sense of purpose, and managing others. Upon retirement, that person may feel role loss, less power, fewer perks, loss of socialization, loss of social attachments, loss of activity, and loss of control. Upon retirement, empowered workers demonstrated HIGHER rates of depression, anxiety, and distress and LESS satisfaction with retirement (Drentea, 2002).

Workers in alienating jobs often work for a bureaucracy, often "alienated" from decision-makers and upper management. Commonalities of alienating jobs include the routinizing of the tasks and inflexibility of schedules and rules where they are "alienated from themselves, their work, and others" (Drentea, p. 168). Alienated workers were MORE satisfied in retirement than work, reporting a sense of well-being, LESS depression and anxiety post-retirement, and they overall made a positive adjustment to retirement compared to empowered workers.

The implication for this study suggests ways for empowered workers to make a positive adjustment retirement and enhance mental well-being. One recommendation is the creation of step-down retirement where formerly empowered workers are able to make a gradual adjustment to the loss of power and control (Drentea, 2002).

Drentea, P. (2002). Retirement and mental health. Journal of Aging and Health, 14(2), 167-194.