Attitudes toward Retirement and Distance from the Event

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between distance from the retirement event, both before and after, and attitudes toward retirement. Previous research indicated that attitudes become more negative just prior to retirement and that people who had been retired longer had more negative attitudes than those who retired more recently. These previous findings were taken as hypotheses and tested with data from 173 people in the preretirement stage and 176 people who had retired. Attitudes toward retirement were generally positive and were unrelated to distance from retirement for both samples. Health and income adequacy were the main predictors of attitude toward retirement. The postretirement sample was slightly less favorable toward retirement than was the preretirement sample. This was due to the higher incidence of disability in the postretirement sample.