# RETIREMENT PROCESS IN MEN

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER · 1991 · $64,516

## Abstract

Gerontologists often assert that retirement is a "process", i.e., a dynamic
experience taking place over a period of time.  Despite this important
emphasis on evolving experience, little research effort has gone into
substantiating it.  As it now stands, the retirement process is an
intuitively appealing but vague notion.  This project will conduct a
coordinated programmatic series of analyses on existing panel data in order
to specify men's processes of anticipation and adaptation preceding and
following the event of retirement.  The project will first examine work and
retirement orientation over the pre-retirement years to determine whether
there is a disengagement from work and a gathering involvement with
upcoming retirement, testing hypotheses about gradual and discrete patterns
of change.  Attitudes and activities over the post-retirement period will
also be studied to determine whether retirement experience varies with the
duration of retirement; in particular, whether the post-retirement period
is marked by a period of letdown or dysphoria.  Finally, the project will
determine the extent to which workers from different pre-retirement vantage
points have realistic expectations of retirement relative to their later
experience of retired life.

Data analyses will be based on a 12-year, 5-wave panel study of work and
retirement issues; surveys were conducted between 1975 and 1987 among some
1,800 male participants in the V.A. Normative Aging Study in Boston.
(Funds were not originally available for the proposed analyses.)  Changes
in the variables chosen to index the pre- and post-retirement processes
will be observed over multiple time axes (age, pre-retirement proximity,
length of time retired).  Statistical models for the analysis of
longitudinal data will be structured to test for non-linear patterns of
change.  Assuming that there is no single or unitary process of retirement,
analyses describing group differences in retirement processes are planned.

Accurate information about the course of men's retirement experience will
be of practical benefit to prospective retirees, as well as to
practitioners and planners who disseminate lifestyle advice to persons of
retireable age.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3120677
- **Project number:** 5R01AG008882-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER
- **SAM.gov UEI:** YXJGGNC5J269
- **Principal Investigator:** David J Ekerdt
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1991
- **Award amount:** $64,516
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1990-05-01 → 1992-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3120677

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3120677, RETIREMENT PROCESS IN MEN (5R01AG008882-02). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3120677. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*