Why Retirement is Different

Retirement isn’t an event: it is a process, which happens over time. For many of us it comes with leaving full-time employment at 60 or 65 or thereabouts. For others it is a process of winding down over a longer period. For some it is a stage of life where choosing to continue to work is a preference, but with emphasis on the sense of choice. It can also be a stage of enforced idleness, when work would still be desirable, but is not on offer. Finally, for some, it is about adjusting to the retirement of one partner, when the other has been at home all the time.

The fundamental difference between retirement and earlier life stages is that most of us have no idea when retirement will…