Life After Work

A Psychological Guide to a Healthy Retirement

Robert Bor, Carina Eriksen, Lizzie Quarterman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429812309
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Retirement is a comma in our lives, not a full stop. Life After Work looks at the psychological, emotional and wellbeing issues that surround this complex and important transition in life. This book suggests that retirement is a life stage over which we may have greater control than previously thought; it no longer has to be the case that retirement is a terminal point, a time where you became sedentary and inactive.

Retirement is on one level a private, individual matter that affects one's sense of self and purpose, physical and mental processes, as well as financial security or provision. On another level, retirement has an impact on relationships with loved ones, family and friends, as well as colleagues. It can strengthen or disrupt bonds, leading to new bonds being formed or to withdrawal. This book is written by successful authors and psychologists Robert Bor, Carina Eriksen and Lizzie Quarterman, each with many years' experience of helping people cope with life stage changes and prepare for retirement. It contains illustrative case studies throughout, from which valuable lessons can be learned, and draws on the very latest psychological research and techniques to provide a blueprint for planning and living a wonderful retirement or life post-work.

Planning for your future is crucial in enabling you to maximise the opportunities available. Following the book's blueprint will help you prepare for this phase in your life, and the sooner you start the better. Life After Work will be of great interest to readers of all ages seeking guidance on retirement and will also appeal to psychologists of life stage changes.

Chapter 1

The changing face of retirement

What is retirement?

Retirement is both an event and a process. It is an event in that at a given moment or date you will stop working or being engaged in a particular activity you have been involved in, in a work or career capacity. This may come about because you have planned and chosen for this to happen or it may be forced upon you due to redundancy, ill health, family and personal circumstances or other reasons. Some people dread the moment and fear the prospect of this important life change; others may welcome or relish the prospect of change in their life and have carefully planned for this eventuality from when they first started working.

Retirement doesn’t have to be the end of your working life, or the end of your life as you know it. It can be the start! In this book, we want to help you begin to think about how you want your life to be in the future. With the guidance we suggest, your so-called “retirement” could in fact be the most fulfilling stage of your life, especially as you will now have far more control over how you spend your time than you ever did when you were working.

Whether or not you continue to work in some form, approaching the third stage of your life as an “encore career” – a new phase in your life – is a mentally healthy attitude. Preparing for a new career requires a degree of strategic preparation, and here we give you a blueprint you can follow to make the most of your life after retirement.

Retirement is also a process in that it involves working towards something, running down, handing over and also planning for your next stage of life. Less than a generation ago retirement was seen as an absolute and predictable event. It was absolute because there was a legal retirement age and so it was predictable, in that when you reached a certain point in life you would be obliged to give up your work. This is no longer so – and indeed in the space of less than ten years the whole notion of retirement has been turned on its head.

These days, retirement can happen at almost any point in your working life. It can also occur more than once in your working life. You could be one of the few people for whom it comes sooner, coinciding with good fortune, high earnings and careful planning, allowing you to support yourself financially and in other ways for the rest of your life. For many, the fact that there is no longer a legal requirement to retire can be welcome. It means that you can continue in your role, or in a working capacity, for as long as you are able to perform your job. You may go through a succession of jobs and indeed different careers. It opens up the prospect of variety, change and opportunities. Either way, it can be a time of mixed emotions.

The form retirement takes may differ from the traditional concept or expectation of retirement. Nowadays, it is more likely to be planned, involve activities, and help to achieve fulfilment in your life goals. It is also likely to impact on relationships around you, not only in positive ways, but also at times, in some unwelcome ways.

Maintaining physical and mental wellbeing will be a core focus for many who retire, mindful of increasing longevity and the opportunities and challenges this brings. Careful management of your finances over a longer period, and all the complexity this demands, requires specialist advice and will need a deal of planning. This will be in regard to not only your financial situation and preparing for old age, but also the sensitive issues of preparing for your demise, loss within the family and legal incapacity.

Managed well, retirement can make you feel fulfilled, accomplished and confident, and lead to greater wellbeing and enjoyment. In contrast, not managing the important financial, social, psychological and other aspects to retirement satisfactorily could adversely affect your physical and mental health, your sense of wellbeing and indeed your longevity.

Quite simply, retirement is now a very different entity to what it was less than a generation ago. Planned for carefully, it can be one of the most pleasurable and fulfilling times of your life. However, there are challenges and risks, and this self-help book aims to highlight some of these and to address them in a practical way, based on tried and tested psychological ideas and practical guidance.

However you want to view it, you can navigate the transition more smoothly with careful planning and preparation, and this book is designed to help you with this. If you fail to do this, there is the danger of financial and practical problems caused by a lack of foresight, and potentially psychological problems may ensue, impacting personal wellbeing and relationships. And having a sense of control over when you leave your job will give you a feeling of power over the situation.

This book has been written to help you enhance your sense of wellbeing with regard to retirement planning. We highlight some of the psychological challenges brought about by this important life event and draw attention to many of the emotions that people attribute to retirement and retirement planning. We also look at what happens to us after we retire and how this can affect us mentally and physically. Based on real experiences, research and also tried and tested psychological interventions, we point out some ways in which to prepare for and manage retirement better, or at the very least purposefully and with a clear sense of direction. Left to chance, retirement can be welcome and fulfilling; however, without some planning, it can be a time beset with fear, worry, stress, anxiety, sleepless nights, irritability and stress that finds its way into relationships. In some cases, it can also lead to negative behaviour and lifestyle choices such as consuming too much alcohol, gambling, sedentary time spent on the Internet and the physical and mental health consequences of these behaviours.

We want to help you begin to think about how you want your life to be in the future. With the tips we suggest, your so-called “retirement” could in fact be the most fulfilling stage of your life – you will have far more control over how you spend your time than you ever did when you were working. More and more people are going against the traditional grain, and refusing to accept that their “useful” life is over just because they get to a certain age. First, we look at why this is happening.

Why has retirement changed?

Longevity

We are all living longer, with average life expectancy now age 83 for a woman, 79 for a man, and this increases by 5 hours every day. Medical care and advances in tackling diseases that previously killed many at a younger age mean more of us are living to a greater age. For example, influenza used to be fatal in the majority of cases; almost all of us now recover after a week in bed. A male aged 65 has a 50 per cent chance of reaching the age of 87.

Men and women used to be considered “old” in their forties, and “ancient” after that, especially by the young. Nowadays, people don’t consider themselves as “elderly” until their mid-eighties! In 2013 the average age exceeded 40.

Ask yourself: How do you feel about possibly living to an older age than your parents and grandparents?

What does “ageing” mean to you? Get a pen and a piece of paper and try to record 5–8 points that come to your mind when you think about getting older. Is there some balance between the welcome and unwelcome ones? How can you address, prepare for or overcome any ideas that may be unwelcome or even troubling? Are you surprised by anything you have noted?

Health advances

We are, on the whole, enjoying better health. Advances in medical research and treatment means most of us are well for longer in our lives. The recent decade has also seen an increase to educational advice on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle by promoting physical exercise, sensible diets and emotional wellbeing. Chronic illnesses are generally better managed and we no longer have to live with minor problems that in the past would have prevented us from working, like cataracts or hip problems.

Our lives are also easier than they were:

• shorter working hours take less of a toll;

• labour-saving devices save energy and effort;

• cars have reduced walking and cycling to get around;

• our homes are more comfortable and warmer;

• advances in technology allows us to pay bills online, work from home and connect socially across the world; and

• we enjoy a far better diet, with more variety and availability.

People used to have to retire when they were worn out, physically unable to continue. Unless you are a manual worker like a dry stone waller, out in all weathers and carrying heavy loads, this is less likely these days.

We all get tired as we get older, but can often continue to work because of the possibilities of reducing our hours by changing shifts, going part-time, job-sharing or working from home. So the prospect of continued working in the same job or some other form of it, or beginning an active retirement, is less often limited by physical debilitation than in the past.

Ask yourself: Do you think your life is easier than the life your parents and grandparents had at your age?

What do you see as the benefits (and perhaps also the disadvantages) of modern lifestyles?

However, increasing longevity raises specific opportunities and challenges. Here are some examples:

• finances may come under pressure;

• more health problems may present (some can be treated; some can’t);

• longer relationships; this may be a pressure or challenge; and

• interests may wane or fluctuate.

Keeping up with fast paced changes in society may feel more challenging – some people are good at adapting to changes while others may be less able to adjust to new ways of living or thinking.

If we expect to live longer, with improved healthcare, health prevention and lifestyle changes made at an earlier stage in life, we may have more capacity, and more inclination or need, to work. On the other hand, living longer does not mean we can assume sufficiently robust physical and mental health to keep working as we might have done at other stages of our lives. The average cost of a four-year stay in a care home is set to double in the next 20 years. As we will highlight later in this book, maintaining your physical and mental health, as well as sharpness of mind, requires a strategy and purpose and should not be left to chance. Staying psychologically healthy as we age is important for many reasons, but especially because we are more likely to maintain and develop friendship and relationships, which buffer us from stress and improve a sense of wellbeing.

Government encouragement to offset demographic change

In the whole of the Western world the population is ageing. We are living longer, and the birth rate has been declining. The House of Lords Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change, in its 2013 Filkin Report, warns that the government and our society are woefully underprepared for ageing. The committee says that longer lives can be a great benefit, but there has been a collective failure to address the implications. The report concluded that we as a country are nowhere near ready for an ageing population and without urgent action this great boon could turn into a series of miserable crises.

The Filkin Report identifies how England will see an average rise of 51 per cent in those aged 65+ and a 101 per cent increase in those aged 85+ from 2010 to 2030. Interestingly, the East Midlands shows the highest rises, with the figures being 58 per cent and 108 per cent respectably. The comparable figures for London are 46 per cent and 66 per cent.

The UK’s ageing population means that unless measures are taken to support working longer the size of the UK’s workforce is likely to flatline, projected to increase by only 4.5 per cent over the next two decades, down from 18.2 per cent over the past two decades, according to a Business in the Community report.

This top-heavy demographic causes a number of problems:

• a growing employment gap, with not enough youngsters leaving education to fill the available jobs;

• growing demand on the NHS for hospital beds and care homes, and the staff to run them; and

• increased financial burden on the younger generations to support the elderly.

The issue of an increasing pensions burden as the population ages is a growing one across Europe. The International Longevity Centre–UK (ILC) has published a study into how European countries are tackling demographic change issues, titled Europe’s Ageing Demography. This report shows that, “as the EU population ages, the level of expenditure on pensions is set to rise significantly. Pension expenditure as a proportion of European GDP is expected to increase by 14.2 per cent in the years leading up to 2060.”

The European Commission projects that public spending on long-term care as a proportion of GDP will rise from 1.8 per cent in 2010 to 3.6 per cent by 2060, an increase of 94 per cent, according to Eurostat (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat).

So, from the government’s point of view, there is an urgent need to encourage older workers to stay in work and stay healthy. In particular, the Filkin Report recommended that Government and employers should work to end “cliff-edge” retirement, which is the sudden ending of our working lives, followed by a sedentary life devoid of work, whether p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Contributors
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1. The changing face of retirement
• 2. Psychological perspectives
• 3. The maturing brain
• 4. Psychological approaches to challenging feelings and behaviours
• 5. Retirement and emotions
• 6. The impact on relationships
• 7. Moving on from work
• 8. Mind your health
• 9. Mind your money Financial planning for retirement
• 10. Thoughts on life (after work)
• 11. Bringing it all together The blueprint for a psychologically sound retirement
• Resources
• Index