title: Creating retirement paths: examples from the lives of women.
abstract: Through in-depth interviews with 40 retired women diverse in age, marital status, ethnicity, income, and occupational background, we explored how women experience retirement. Following our analysis, we identified five retirement pathways: family-focused, service-focused, recreation-focused, employment-focused, and disenchanted retirements. These pathways represent dominant activities and interests at the time the women were interviewed and challenge the cultural portrayal of retirement as an unvarying life stage. The participants' narratives provide a glimpse into the pathways retired women create by revealing the complexity of later life and the changing nature of retirement.
authors.affiliation: Family and Child Studies Department, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA. pricech@mail.montclair.edu
authors.forename: Christine A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Price
authors.forename: Olena
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Nesteruk
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007899:Leisure Activities; D008875:Middle Aged; D010934:Planning Techniques; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012179:Retirement / Q000523:psychology*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D016387:Women's Health