Understanding Political Influences on Occupational Possibilities: An Analysis of Newspaper Constructions of Retirement

Abstract

Occupational possibilities, that is, the occupations people view as ideal and possible and which are promoted and made available within specific sociohistorical contexts, are shaped by political, social and cultural influences. This paper examines the implications of the contemporary structural and discursive transformation of retirement for retirees’ occupational possibilities. Results of a critical discourse analysis of 138 recent Canadian newspaper articles addressing retirement that examined: i) the possibilities and constraints for ways of being (subjectivities) and doing (occupation) and, ii) if and how subjectivities shaped for retirees are linked with neoliberal political rationality, are presented. Four ideal subjectivities, falling along continua with ends points of producer and consumer, and age‐defiance and being prudential, were shaped within the texts analyzed. Drawing on the governmentality perspective, it is argued that contemporary discourses regarding retirement are bounded within neoliberal rationality and, as a result, shape occupational injustices. The findings highlight links between political factors and occupation, and challenge occupational scientists to contribute to the creation of alternative discourses about retirement.

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