[Attitude toward retirement of employed workers in 5 Dutch communities; a research report]

Most studies on retirement in the Netherlands concern workers of one specific industrial branch or company. This puts restrictions on the generalization of research outcomes. We selected 553 male workers, aged 64 (N = 376) and 60 (N = 177) via the population registers of five northern municipalities, who were on the pay-roll for at least eight hours a week. The mean total of working hours per week, however, was 41,5. From a pilot study with other, although similar respondents 35 items relating to retirement were generated. These could be reduced in the main study to four, a priori hypothesized dimensions: the attitude toward retirement, the perception of retirement and life after retirement, the attitude toward loss of social work contacts and the actualization of self after retirement. The data from the longitudinal research project, that are reported in this article, are gathered in the period 1973-74. We estimate that in the population of those aged 64, 15-25% had a negative attitude toward retirement, 16-26% a negative perception of retirement, 45-55% a negative attitude toward the loss of social work contacts and 61-70% a negative perception of self-actualization after retirement. For those aged 60 we estimate these intervals at respectively 8-22%, 13-27%, 45-59% and 62-76%.