The assessment of attitudes towards retirement from a psychosocial approach

Abstract

The aim of this research is, on the one hand, to develop a scale that can be used for assessing attitudes towards retirement as a prevention and intervention tool for improving the life of people in retirement, thereby enhancing a sustainable world that offers quality of life, as well as personal, social, and community well-being, and the efficient use of available materials and socio-sanitary resources. On the other hand, the aim of this research is to analyze the psychometric properties of such a scale, i.e., the reliability and validity of a sample of people at an age that is close to retirement age. Hence, the factorial validity was tested using the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) technique, and the criterion validity was tested by considering general self-efficacy, self-regulation, state of irritation, and certain dimensions of health and personality. The obtained results confirmed the existence of four factors in the scale of attitudes towards retirement as follows: (i) leisure, (ii) economy, (iii) status, and (iv) health. The obtained correlations showed that attitudes towards retirement are positively linked to variables such as self-esteem and self-regulation, whereas significant and negative correlations related to irritation and fatigue were found. Hence, according to the obtained results, the proposed scale is an easy and relevant tool for working on a better and more profitable psychological adaptation to retirement from work. Thus, a society where tools of psychological evaluation, such as the Attitudes toward Retirement Scale (ARS) proposed in this study, are utilized allows for the detection of problems among people facing retirement, which will lead to a more sustainable and evolved society that provides quality of life as well as personal, social, and community well-being.