Is Retirement Really about Old Age? Conceptualization of Retirement among Slovak Pre-Retirees

Abstract

We investigated how the Slovak pre-retiree participants (N = 450, 50 to 62 years; M = 54.9) conceptualize retirement. We used Retirement Lifestyles Questionnaire for measuring retirement concepts, The Passion Scale, Attitudes toward Gains and Losses in Retirement, and Basic Need Satisfaction in General Scale for measuring variables that could help us shed light on retirement concepts. Exploratory factor analysis of the retirement conceptualizations derived from Hornstein and Wapner's framework set aside the Transition to the old age concept and confirmed the New start and Imposed disruption concepts. The Continuation concept was split into two: Continuation in activities and Life without change. Correlation analyses confirmed the connections between the concept of New Start with the perception of gains in retirement and the connections between the concept of Continuation in activities with the basic psychological needs satisfaction and gains in entering retirement. No connections were found with the concept of Life without change. The Imposed Disruption concept was connected to retirement losses and obsessive work passion. The new retirement concepts questionnaire seems to be a prospective tool for detecting adjustment problems in retirement transition, above all in the case of the retirement concept of Imposed disruption.