Male ‘baby boomers’ face lonely retirement

According to new study by Australian researchers men are better at saving money for their retirement - but often have no idea how to spend it.

The researchers at the University of New South Wales say men are good at planning for their financial security in retirement but not for their happiness.

A survey which included 377 men and women aged 50-66 years has revealed that more women than men plan for their health and leisure interests before they stop working and the results suggest that men could find retirement lonely and isolating unless they build social and leisure networks before they leave the workforce.

Co-author, UNSW psychologist, Dr. Joanne Earl says this is a significant finding because a person's level of leisure involvement during their working years tends to predict their involvement during retirement.

Dr. Earl says people are less likely to start new activities after retirement, so getting involved in activities and social activities pre-retirement make good sense and she says if the men surveyed are representative, Australia's male Baby Boomers could be in for a tough time during retirement.

According to Dr. Earl there is a strong emphasis in society to plan and save money for retirement but the bigger questions of what the savings are for and what a person really wants to do when they retire are not considered.

Dr. Earl suggests that employers should be helping workers to plan for all facets of their retirement, not just their financial futures and she believes if working people approaching retirement were helped to answer these types of questions, they could plan more adequately for a satisfying future beyond work.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that 48% of full-time workers plan to switch to part-time work before they retire - an indication that employers need career development programs to assist mature age workers to transition to part-time work before they leave the paid workforce.

Dr. Earl and her UNSW colleague PhD student Alexa Muratore have developed a measure to assist people to consider the range of activities necessary for retirement planning and 70% of people completing the survey have said it helped them identify aspects of retirement worth considering.

The research is published in Psychology and Aging.