Hope and well-being in retirement

Abstract

Utilizing Diener's (1984) model of subjective well-being, this study examined predictors of positive affect, negative affect, and context-free life satisfaction in a sample of 215 retirees (mean age = 64.53 years); with a view toward the development of a model of well-being in retirement. Predictors included person-centered and organization-centered variables. Person-centered variables such as marital satisfaction were predictive of subjective well-being, while demographic variables and financial satisfaction were not. Organization-centered variables including retrospective job satisfaction, person-work retirement decision factors, and the retirement transition were all found to be predictive of subjective well-being. The study found that after controlling for all other predictors, the two factors of hope, pathways and agency thinking, as operationalized by Snyder, Harris, Anderson, Holleran, Irving, et al. (1991) accounted for a significant proportion of variance in the three dimensions of subjective well-being: negative affect, positive affect, and satisfaction with life.