Linking retirement experiences and marital satisfaction: a mediational model.
The authors propose and test a mediational model linking the experience of retirement with marital satisfaction. The experience of retirement (financial strain, time structure, a sense of purposefulness, and interpersonal contacts) is held to predict marital satisfaction indirectly through its sequential effects on context-specific well-being (retirement-specific satisfaction with health, activities, and peers) and context-free well-being (depressive symptoms). Both this model and a revised model in which retirement satisfaction also exerted a direct effect on marital satisfaction were supported using structural equation modeling on data from 164 retirees (mean age = 69 years). An alternative model in which depressive symptoms assume a predictive rather than mediational role was not supported; cross-lagged regression analyses excluded the possibility that marital dissatisfaction resulted in depressive symptoms. The conceptual and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Higginbottom
S F
SF
Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Barling
J
J
Kelloway
E K
EK
D000368:Aged; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012179:Retirement; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires