The experience of retirement: a sociological analysis

Abstract

The retirement experience is examined in this thesis via interviews with four groups - residents in an inner city area miners, car workers and architects The purpose behind these interviews is to explore the everyday experience of retirement relating this experience both to the immediate structures surrounding the individual and to broader economic and political forces. As well as giving detailed descriptions of the retirement experience, this thesis is also concerned with theoretical issues in the field of social gerontology. Here, I have reviewed the main sociological theories and have indicated the outline of an alternative approach. As a final aim of the thesis, I have tried to integrate some of the arguments advanced, with a discussion about the components of a retirement social policy, relating the necessity for such a policy both to the ending of life-time employment and the movement towards an ageing of the population. Further, I have attempted to illustrate the effect of these changes via the interviews conducted for this study, building the elements of a social policy for retirement both on the latter, and on extrapolations about future social changes.