International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities
Retirement represents a key life transition in the lives of older men. This life change from a focus on work and career to leaving paid labour often involves a contradictory mixture of perceived loss and potential growth and reconstruction. Some men view retirement constructively: they are hopeful about new beginning; open to fresh approaches to their health and well-being; and look forward to more time for playful exploration, travel and enjoyment. Other men perceive retirement as mainly about loss: loss of positive social recognition and support from work colleagues and loss of an arena within which they can demonstrate masculine competence and build status.
Retirement can be threatening for many men in gendered terms. They can be anxious about losing the work activities and social relations that have primarily defined their masculine identities. In western societies, being workless in the public sphere can undermine a man’s sense of being masculine, especially when he is then more household-defmed.
Men’s experiences of retirement are extremely diverse, depending on their work histories, social and economic circumstances and emotional and physical well-being. Those men who experienced fulfilment, self-worth and stability in their working lives are more likely to view retirement positively. Other men who have confronted poverty, insecure and subordinating work conditions and poor health often view retirement with fear and anxiety. Indeed, some men cannot afford to view themselves as retired at all, and economic necessity keeps some men working for their entire lives.
Another key social factor that affects men’s retirement experiences is partnership status. The problems of loneliness and social isolation after retirement are urgently real for some heterosexual men who are widowed or divorced, gay men living alone and men who have never married. Marriages or partnerships, and the informal social networks often associated with such relationships, often protect many men from mental health problems, illness or a lack of social embeddedness.
Giving up restricted work conditions, in retirement, can lead to the exploration of new forms of masculinity. This breaking out of narrow and rigid models of masculinity can prompt older men to reintegrate earlier, excluded masculinities, such as more tender, creative, self-reflexive and socially connected masculine identities, but again this is partly dependent on the quality of men’s earlier experiences in boyhood and the middle years.
See also: age and ageing; men’s relations with men; men’s relations with women; mid-life crisis
DAVID JACKSON
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