Retirement and its effect on leisure activities and life style

Abstract

Retirement is a relatively new phenomenon in our society and poses a real challenge of adjustment to a new way of life. No society has been confronted by an equivalent problem. This study has been undertaken when there has been an increase in the number of people moving into this age group and when very little research and investigation has been done in the field. With the increase in technology, affluence, leisure time and the ageing population, it is important that more is known about the retirement effect. This study investigates the effect on lifestyle, patterns and changes in recreation and leisure, the replacement of work by leisure, the changes in satisfaction levels and the contact with family, friends and relations. A sample of forty retired people were personally interviewed to provide an individualized, indepth picture of the retirement lifestyle. Twenty of the sample had retired from the rural area around Kimbolton, and twenty from the urban areas of Wellington and Christchurch. All the sample had moved to retire. The rural group moved to settle in Feilding, and the urban group moved to live in Paraparaumu. A "snowball" method of contact was used to find this sample and this proved an extremely effective method of locating these people. It was impossible to include every single leisure activity in the results, so all activities were categorized into nine groups. These nine categories were designed to maintain the identity and the individuality of each of the leisure activities and were as follows:- games, sports, community activities, social activities, arts and crafts, hobbies, religion, entertainment, and other. Even though there is the reward to 'take it easy', there is the underlying dread for many people to be 'sitting on the porch'. This demotion from the work system can cause a drop in income, which opens up problems especially in the leisure field, where costs can be considerable, changes in status, opportunity for social interaction, satisfaction and self esteem. The appropriate recreation and leisure activities can provide an antidote to cultural exclusion and the replacement of status and role, lost by retirement. The leisure pursuits must be in line with the interests of the retiree and must provide the means to use spare time in the best possible way without destroying self image. Education and the development of new skills are of a vital nature during the middle and pre retirement phase of life to aid the transition and build up interests, which involve the retired in leisure time. There should be a wide range of alternative activities offered. Leisure means very different things to different people and therefore individual differences must be catered for. With a sample of forty, results and conclusions can not be transferred to the whole retirement population but these results do indicate trends and lead the way to more extensive study in this area.