Research Project
3115741
This longitudinal project studies the consequences for change in health status which can be attributed to retirement. The coping resources used to deal with the stressors of the developmental transition of retirement constitute the major focus of the research. Five samples of Israeli men and women, for each of whom the retirement process is embedded in a different institutional structure, will be followed from just before retirement for a period of four years. The samples are: kibbutz members; academics; female civil service employees; female and male blue collar workers. The study is salutogenic in orientation: its major aim is to explain the factors involved in successful coping and health maintenance or improvement. This will be done by submitting to tests the "Sense of Coherence" theory developed by the PI in studying a wide variety of health outcomes. The study thus aims at filling a need for good theory in the field of retirement and health. The central hypothesis predicts a positive relationship between the sense of coherence and positive consequences in health status over time. This general coping trait is predicted to play an even more crucial role the more abrupt the retirement transition and the heavier the life stressor load. Consideration of alternative opportunity structures and retirement patterns should provide valuable information for policy formulation in western societies. Data will be collected in four face-to face structured interviews in respondents' home (in 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990). Crossectional data will analyzed by univariate and multivariate techniques, with interactions taken into account. The longitudinal design permits analysis of change in health status, with causal implications, in relation to the sense of coherence, hardiness, life stressor load, and a net gain-loss balance of attitudes to retirement. The feedback effect of health, as well as of other variables, on the sense of coherence will be given particular attention.
