Diversity Within Retirement[i]
Since I retired a year ago I have
continued to concentrate on conveying information both through my blog and as a
substitute teacher for Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I am on the board of the local Senior's Centre (for over ten years) and I canvas for the Canadian Cancer Society. I have taken up Acylic painting and enjoy creating small poems.
The
goal of Dr. Teuscher’s article is to explore “…which factors predicted people’s
self definition as professionals or as retirees and…how identity diversity was
linked to life satisfaction.”
Somewhat
related to the topic of ageism the author tells us that. “Research studies have
shown consistently that people tend to distance themselves from being old, even
in older age.”
Further he cites another researcher is as having found that
“…in pre-industrial societies a biological understanding of “old age” was
defined as an increase in frailty—as being close to death.”.
How
does this connect to retirement?
Considering the above “…the more positively a person’s profession is
valued by society the more that person will define him- or herself in terms of
his or her profession.” That is it
will significantly influence the importance we place on our professional
identity after we have retired.
The
article also looks at identity diversity outside the work domain. In other
words “self-complexity” which defined
“…as the extent to which individuals seem to use multiple self-aspects
in defining themselves, as well as the degree these aspects are independent of
each other; that is only overlap minimally.”
The
focus of Teuscher’s research project is to look at the numbers of retiree’s
identity aspects. Thus “…participants
were asked to directly rate the importance of different identity domains (such
as profession, family, leisure activities, etc) to characterize
themselves.” Below are samples of
the six questionnaire topics:
1) Demographic: e.g. gender and education level
2) Satisfaction:
e.g. body fitness, interests, and esteem
3)
Attitude
toward aging: e.g. interest, enthusiasm, and Dependency
4) Self-Efficacy Belief: confident and
competent to:
a.
always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough.
b. stick to aims and accomplish goals.
c. deal efficiently with unexpected events.
5) Job Deprivation: e.g. missing job
and/or enjoying retirement
6) Importance of Identity: Profession
or occupation, leisure activities, and fact that one is now retired
The
research found that there wasn’t much difference in attitude between
non-retired and retired professionals. In fact the persons’ profession, or
former profession, remained more important than retirement. Professional identity was connected
with “gender, professional status, self-efficacy belief, duration of last
professional occupation and job-deprivation.
Following
this I can say that I am not employed but I still have great joy in teaching and helping others. In part because I was the first born child in our family and I developed an identity by helping others.
No comments:
Post a Comment