Retirement means different things to different people. Some people can hardly wait to start traveling or playing golf more. I was always afraid of it — afraid that I would be bored, afraid that I would stop learning, afraid that without the structure of a work schedule I wouldn’t be able to remember what day it was.
In the event, it hasn’t been too bad.
Recognizing the variety of attitudes people have about retirement, the American Association of Retired People (AARP) commissioned a study for use by financial planners (varied attitudes do affect financial planning). I got a kick out of the recommendation about tempering people’s belief in a future consisting of walks on the beach and endless golf. After all, one really changes as time marches on. And I’m particularly aware of that today as my lack of attention entering an on-ramp was a bit responsible for getting my car rear-ended.
Chaiwoo Lee, Ph.D., and Joseph F. Coughlin, Ph.D., have now published “Describing Life After Career: Demographic Differences in the Language and Imagery of Retirement” at the Journal of Financial Planning. I removed references to prior research, but you can find all that here.
“This empirical study was conducted to understand people’s perspectives toward retirement and to describe how views differ between people of various characteristics.
- “Verbal and visual representations regarding life after completion of a career were collected online from 990 adults in the U.S. to uncover underlying ideas and map key concepts.
- “A small number of words and features were reported in descriptions of retirement, indicating both an ambiguity and limitation in relating their current selves to possible future states.
- “Perceptions of retirement were generally positive, and a sense of optimism was evident across different segments.
- “Some demographic differences were found in thoughts on life after career. For example, people making less than $25,000 a year used fewer positive words and more negative words [editorial comment: No kidding!]; younger adults’ images were more likely to address financial well-being; and older adults and those with higher incomes provided more images related to travel.
- “Using the results of this analysis, financial planners can better address clients’ emotional needs, rather than solely focusing on rational financial planning. …
“The ambiguity and limited vocabulary associated with retirement might be explained [in part by the fact that] participants were asked to think about an intangible future state, their answers may have been bounded to a small, abstract, and coherent set of words. The observation that younger respondents used more vague and abstract words, while older respondents used more specific words, further supports this explanation.
“The finding can also be explained with portrayals of retirement in public media. Ekerdt and Clark observed that the majority of retirement advertisements did not depict visual images, and the small portion that did focused on leisure and freedom. Such limitation in consumers’ exposure to related concepts may have impacted the results, where ‘relax’ and ‘travel’ were among the most frequent.
“People were generally optimistic about life after completion of career. Most of the words were positive, and images showing life after career were generally more positive compared to images representing today. A possible explanation can come from the positivity bias, or the Pollyanna Hypothesis, which describes that people universally tend to use positive words more frequently and diversely than negative words. It is also aligned with past research that found people to be more optimistic about the distant future compared to the imminent future.
“The majority of such positive words and images addressed emotional values, suggesting a higher emphasis on pursuing emotional fulfillment in retirement. This may be due to related media that mostly convey positive contents around leisure, freedom, personal pursuit, and financial security.
“Results showed some differences in how different segments view life after career. For example, older participants, suburban and rural residents, married people, and men provided more words addressing physical values compared to their counterparts. … The positivity gap between the present and the future were greater among younger participants. However, while images from the younger participants showed wealth, family, and accomplishments with a positive lens, their descriptions lacked in how they plan to reach the ideal future state. [No kidding!]
“These findings have practical implications for the evolving roles of financial planners as curators, educators, and co-creators of retirement. The limited vocabulary and imagery imply that clients may not have a clear, or realistic, vision of retirement. Results suggest that planners may have a new role as curators of possible lifestyles for clients to consider and plan for.
“Respondents reflected inordinately high positivity about their future retired selves. Financial planners may not want to dissuade clients of looking optimistically, but they may find an important role as educators in tempering popular images of beach walks and green fairways with candid discussions of possible futures that may be costly and less positive.” Ha, ha, that’s for sure!
Nevertheless, I thought it was interesting that people think about retirement so differently.
Thanks for sharing.
The photo you sent recently was a good example of the fun people can have in retirement. What a crew!
Så rätt du har
So right you are
As a happily retired person, I found this so interesting! But, it is true–retirement probably never ends up being quite as carefree and mellow as it is depicted. But I still like it!
I admire how incredibly productive your retirement is. You work hard at your craft and seem to derive a lot of satisfaction from the results. You set an example for us all.