Read more
In the popular imagination, retirement promises a well-deserved rest--idle days spent traveling, volunteering, pursuing hobbies, or just puttering around the house. But as the nature of work has changed, becoming not just a means of income but a major source of personal identity, many accomplished professionals struggle with discontentment in their retirement. What are we to do--individually and as a culture--when work and life experience make conventional retirement a burden rather than a reprieve? In Retirement and Its Discontents, Michelle Pannor Silver considers how we confront the mismatch between idealized and actual retirement. She follows doctors, CEOs, elite athletes, professors, and homemakers during their transition to retirement as they struggle to recalibrate their sense of purpose and self-worth. The work ethic and passion that helped these retirees succeed can make giving in to retirement more difficult, as they confront newfound leisure time with uncertainty and guilt.
List of contents
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Renegade Retirement and the Greedy Institution: The Doctors
3. Refined Retirement and Fulfillment Employment: The CEOs
4. Early Retirement and Resilience: The Elite Athletes
5. Late Retirement and Working in Place: The Professors
6. Undefined Retirement and the Retirement Mystique: The Homemakers
7. Conclusion
Appendix A. Methodological Overview
Appendix B. Interview Guide
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Michelle Pannor Silver is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Health and Society at the University of Toronto.
Summary
In the popular imagination, retirement promises a well-deserved rest—idle days spent traveling, volunteering, pursuing hobbies, or just puttering around the house. But as the nature of work has changed, becoming not just a means of income but a major source of personal identity, many accomplished professionals struggle with discontentment in their retirement. What are we to do—individually and as a culture—when work and life experience make conventional retirement a burden rather than a reprieve?
In Retirement and Its Discontents, Michelle Pannor Silver considers how we confront the mismatch between idealized and actual retirement. She follows doctors, CEOs, elite athletes, professors, and homemakers during their transition to retirement as they struggle to recalibrate their sense of purpose and self-worth. The work ethic and passion that helped these retirees succeed can make giving in to retirement more difficult, as they confront newfound leisure time with uncertainty and guilt. Drawing on in-depth interviews that capture a range of perceptions and common concerns about what it means to be retired, Silver emphasizes the significance of creating new retirement strategies that support social connectedness and personal fulfillment while countering ageist stereotypes about productivity and employment. A richly detailed and deeply personal exploration of the challenges faced by accomplished retirees, Retirement and Its Discontents demonstrates the importance of personal identity in forging sustainable social norms around retirement and helps us to rethink some of the new challenges for aging societies.
Additional text
Retirement and Its Discontents addresses the experience of five different groups’ experience of retirement, with a focus on individuals who have found retirement challenging. This is cutting-edge research particularly because Michelle Silver interviewed members of groups who are often difficult to access, doctors and CEOs, as well as housewives, elite athletes, and professors. By concentrating on how the research participants explain their perspective, Silver demonstrates the diversity in how people experience retirement and makes the case for the decoupling of age and retirement.
