Retirement & Well-Being Study examines transition for older Americans

By Susan Lang

A new publication from the Cornell Retirement and Well-Being Study provides an in-depth look at how older Americans fare through the transition to -- and in -- retirement.

"Our focus was on the pathways in and out of paid work and unpaid community service, as well as their implications for well-being," said Phyllis Moen, the principal investigator and a professor of sociology and human development at Cornell. She is the Ferris Family Professor of Life Course Studies and co-director of the Cornell Gerontology Research Institute, which funded the study.

Unlike most other studies that view retirement as a one-way, one-time exit and have primarily looked at the experiences of men, the study, which has generated more than three dozen scholarly publications, focused on both genders and looked at the retirement process over time. Three waves of interviews with 664 workers and retirees, ages 50 to 72, from six major upstate New York corporations, were conducted every two years over a five-year period, beginning in 1994 and ending in 1999.

The 36-page report, which is free and available to the public, examines the process of retirement from various angles, including the retirement transition, planning for retirement, post-retirement employment, volunteer service and health and well-being. The report includes almost three dozen graphs and tables.

Among its numerous findings:

• Women still tend to have different career patterns from men's typical continuous, full-time, upwardly mobile career paths. However, women who follow the typical male path are the most likely to experience marital instability.

• The careers of husbands and wives are intertwined. However, men married to "homemaker" wives are more likely to have upwardly mobile careers, while men married to women who have worked full time throughout adulthood are more likely to have downwardly mobile careers.

• The transition to retirement is particularly stressful and tends to have a negative impact on marriages. When only one spouse retires, marital conflict is the greatest. Once both are settled into retirement, however, marital quality rebounds.

• Retirees who volunteer are more likely to have volunteered before retirement. However, the benefits of volunteering become particularly pronounced in retirement.

• Most retirees wish they had planned more for retirement. Women tend to begin planning later and tend to plan less than men do.

• Retirees report they are "completely satisfied" with life more often than workers still in their primary career jobs.

The study was funded in part by the Cornell Gerontology Research Institute, an Edward R. Roybal Center for Research on Applied Gerontology.

A more detailed publication on older Americans is Social Integration in the Second Half of Life (2000, Johns Hopkins University Press), a scholarly book edited by the researchers of the Cornell Gerontology Research Institute.

To obtain a copy of the report, contact Sarah Demo at sjj4@cornell.edu or 255-8039, or by fax at 254-2903.