Growing into retirement: Longitudinal evidence for the importance of partner support for self-expansion.

Abstract

Retirement can be a turbulent time of life in which people must navigate changes in their identity from ending a career and beginning a new phase of life. However, retirement can also provide opportunities for growth or self-expansion. We examined the benefits of partner support for self-expansion by using longitudinal evidence (at 3 time points) in a sample of 73 couples. We tested a theoretical model proposing that partner support for self-expansion at Time 1 would predict retirement satisfaction and overall health 1 year later and that these effects would be mediated by self-expansion at 6 months. Using structural equation modeling, we found significant indirect effects for both retirement satisfaction and health, supporting all hypotheses. These results suggest that during retirement, partners play an important role in encouraging opportunities for growth as an investment toward future retirement satisfaction and health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

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