The Psychology of Retirement and Ageing

Looking for insights on how to plan for retirement? Not just financially, but emotionally and socially too. 

Professor Joanne Earl joined Macquarie University in January 2018 having worked at Flinders University (South Australia) and at UNSW for 9 years in the School of Psychology. 

She is a Registered Psychologist, endorsed as an Organisational Psychologist and a member of the Australian Psychological Society.

Her program of research focuses on promoting retirement planning for workers at both the individual and organisational level along with identifying predictors of retirement adjustment for retirees.

Transcript

00:00

If you're old enough to remember when phones had cords and the only thing that went viral was a cold, then you're in the right place. Welcome to the Big Six-O with Kaylee Harris and Guy Rawlison. Because who better to discuss life's second act than two people who still think mature is a type of cheese?

00:36

Welcome to the Big Six O, where we tackle the ups and downs, all the unexpected twists of life after 60. I'm Guy Rowlison, and always I'm joined by the woman who claims she's probably gearing up for retirement and training her cat to start looking after her emails. Very fabulous. All of that stuff. Basically, Harris. The only personal assistant I have these days is the cat. How is the cat managing your professional life at the moment? I've locked the two of them, actually.

01:03

lock the two of them in another room otherwise they just sit outside the room here and just cry and cry. As soon as I lock myself away they're like no. I've seen the action. I've seen oh my gosh I know you know how many times we've had to cut out the cat crying in the background of a podcast. Well today we're actually diving into the world of retirement with someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Professor Joanne Earl from Macquarie University is a specialist in retirement psychology.

01:31

Which means I guess that she's here to help us figure out how to retire without losing our minds. She's got some amazing insights on how to plan for a time and not just financially, but emotionally and socially too. Jo, it's great to have you on the podcast. Welcome. Oh, thanks very much for having me, Guy and Kayleigh. Lovely to be here. Firstly, what is retirement psychology? Well, I started having a look at older employees really, and what options were available for them in terms of.

02:01

career development, and then more closely, the transition to retirement. I mean, the question about retirement is a broad one, of course. Some people hate the word retirement even, and they encourage people not to use it. I think it's playing around with semantics. It's basically disengaging from work or part of work and reengaging in other activities. And it can vary throughout life. You might leave work and then...

02:30

circle back into work and then retire again, come back part time. It doesn't have to be linear and it doesn't have to be all or nothing. So what inspired you to focus on that phase of life? Because a lot of us are approaching it and how has your work influenced the way people sort of plan their retirements and plan their thinking? Yeah sure, so a lot of the work that I was doing early on was having a look at graduates and in particular I was having a look at

02:59

And what really struck me was how many of those graduates left after 18 months or two years. So, it was about 50% of all the original, you know, cast and crew of the graduate intake that had left. And at the same time, I was working with a group of very talented project managers in mid-career and late-career and started having a look at what sort of development was available for them. And I noticed a big gap in that.

03:27

lot of attention to the new generation coming in, not so much for older employees. Then the other thing I also realized is there wasn't much going on for people who had retired and were finding it difficult to maybe get some direction, get some focus, find their passion. So I started working in that area.

03:57

recognised even as part of psychology. A lot of my colleagues were saying to me, when are you going to give up that retirement stuff and come back to psychology? And I was saying, well, wait on, I think I'm doing both. And I've always looked at it from that non-financial perspective. Got a great deal of respect for financial advisors, but I know what my lane is and I don't touch the money stuff. I leave that for the experts. There's plenty of people out there that are in that.

04:24

sphere with guiding people towards money because we're sort of the the richest demographic aren't we really in in terms of advertising dollars and how much money that boomers have to retire with so I think that's that's yeah a space that we can explore and we have explored previously with another guest but from my perspective retirement as an idea is still relatively new in history. When we think about my parents

04:52

who would be had they lived about 90 now, retirement wasn't really, was kind of just the beginning of what they were thinking of when they were younger, that maybe it was a thing. But for my grandparents, there was no such thing as retirement. People didn't retire. It wasn't a destination that you aspired to and look forward to. It was you sort of got older and if you were lucky, you might be able to live with your kids or you'd get put off into a nursing home.

05:19

But retirement as a destination and something to be enjoyed and encouraged and you know the third age if you like was just not a thing 50, 60 years ago. That's true although I would say what gets potentially ignored are the people who haven't maybe had the opportunity to save as much for retirement and end up in very difficult circumstances particularly those people who don't own homes.

05:48

So we see in some ways a fairly privileged population, but there's a whole undercurrent of people that are potentially being discounted who have difficulty. Older single women in particular who haven't got significant superannuation balances will be doing it pretty tough.

06:12

A lot of people do have the luxury of choosing what that time of their life looks like and curating a set of activities or opportunities that will allow them to self-actualise in a way. We're lucky. We are lucky like that though. The very fact that we can even have this conversation today about what our options are and how we might be spending that time is really a luxury of this generation.

06:40

Outside of the financial considerations and they're big ones, they're very important things that we need to look at and examine. It also, when it comes to retirement, it requires a huge shift in mindset, doesn't it? From your perspective, what are some of the psychological challenges people face when they even start considering transitioning from work to retirement? And how can they prepare? I think there's two key considerations here. One is firstly, how they exit.

07:08

that'll make a big difference to how well they adjust. So if people are forced out of work and they've really not even considered the option, they've not really considered the alternatives, then that can be very difficult and very disorientating for people in the first instance. But you know, I also see a lot of people who have the opportunity to take redundancy, they see the money on the table.

07:37

haven't really thought about retirement at all until the money's there. They take retirement and then they start to think about it. And I think sometimes that transition when you've not thought about what that time in your life will look like becomes much more challenging. What we encourage people to do is to plan holistically. So that is for sure worry about the money, worry about health

08:06

importance to each other. Think about social, what you're going to do in terms of who you're going to connect with. Think about what you're going to do to keep your brain healthy. What are you going to do to keep your mind active? What are you going to do about your emotions? I mean, how do you keep yourself sort of psychologically well and positive? And keep setting goals because that will actually help to improve your retirement adjustment as well. And if you think about those six buckets,

08:34

overlaying that with about 62 free hours a week. How are you going to spend that 62 hours a week? What are you going to do to keep yourself well? What are you going to do to connect with people? You know, what will you do to keep your mind healthy? How will you keep yourself positive? And what sort of things bring you joy? All those sorts of things can help for that 62 hours a week. It can be really difficult, can't it? Because I think it's much easier to form friendships when you're younger.

09:01

but it can be increasingly difficult as you get older. And I think there's too much emphasis placed on, oh, well, when I retire, I'll just go and do some volunteer work. And yes, that can play a part. I think that plays a part, but I think it's also much more difficult to make friends and have those circles around you because a lot of those people in that circle might have grandchildren and they're off doing their own thing. It can be difficult. It can be a very lonely time, do you think, Jo?

09:30

Look, I think it is. I think people are susceptible to loneliness and when people say that they're at a bit of a loose end in retirement, I think a lot of the time that's what they're talking about, the fact that they haven't connected with other people. But I think it's easier if you start to connect while you're still working and you start to explore some of those ideas and those networks while you're still...

09:55

working because I think then it's less of an adjustment. You're leaving work, you've got all that time available. It's not just an event. Retirement is not just an event. It's a journey, it's a process. If you think of it that way, there's no reason why you should be turning work off and turning these new relationships on when you could be...

10:19

winding down your work or less time that you spend in work related activities and increasing the social stuff more. So you're right though about people thinking that when they retire, they're going to go off and do all these things. Only about 21% of people actually do the things that they thought they'd be doing in retirement. So for every five people that say they're going to play golf, only one person sort of shows up. So thinking about it from that perspective, what could you be doing to ease yourself in

10:49

to those new networks. My husband's getting close to retirement age. He's just started going to a boot camp in the mornings. And one of the things that he's found is, you know, what he's really enjoyed is the social aspects of that. We had the Christmas party, the boot camp Christmas party. Last weekend, this weekend was a champagne breakfast with fake champagne.

11:15

You know, it's all those sorts of events that you can just start to curate and build up gradually and give some thought to, okay, what am I going to connect with when I'm in retirement now, rather than trying to do it all, you know, day one of retirement. Because one of those things that I know people that I have connections and networks with that are approaching that age, the question always comes up, oh, what are you going to do? And the first three things that people say, oh, well, we're going to travel and

11:44

As you say, oh, we might play golf and we'll be busy. And you think, that doesn't really cut the mustard because you can't travel for 52 weeks of the year. You're not playing golf seven days a week. You really do have to have a plan in place because if that magic day just all of a sudden springs upon you and you think, well, um, well today I'm going to mow the lawn, you've got a long life ahead of you, hopefully.

12:12

And you really do need to have something in place to say, yeah, I'm going to remain active and not this fanciful, we're going to travel and play golf mentality. Yeah. That's right. And I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I wonder whether or not in some ways, when we talk about those big events, it's almost like FOMO at older age, you know, the fear of missing out at older age, where we feel like we've got to share with people big things that we're doing.

12:40

You know, we're going overseas or we're traveling around Australia in a caravan, or, you know, we're doing the renovations or we're going to, you know, spend a month with the kids and we're going to travel to Disneyland with them and all this sort of stuff. Whereas in fact, I mean, life goes on in retirement. What's wrong with saying, I'm going to spend every Wednesday pushing the trolley down the middle aisle at Audi? You know, what's wrong with that? Nothing. Because that's...

13:10

We've still got to eat and get groceries and cook meals and do washing and limo the lawns and do all those other activities that were available to us when we worked. We might not have to do them all on the weekend now. We might be able to spread them across the week. But it also means that there's ordinary things that we should be enjoying and celebrating as well. Someone said to me once...

13:39

When I was doing a bit of retirement counseling with them, they were telling me about things that they'd been doing and enjoying. I said, but how have you spent the last two weeks? Because I haven't seen you for a while. They said, well, I've been painting the laundry. I said, well, why didn't you leave with that? They said, because I felt ridiculous saying that I was painting the laundry. I've got my friends spending a week in Venice, other people hiring a house in Sicily. I didn't want to really talk about it.

14:08

painting the laundry, but why not? I'd like to know what color it was. I'd like to know if he used a roller or a brush. You know what I mean? Some of this stuff that we want to make fantastic and it's almost like that FOMO, fear of missing out and all the big stuff that people need to do. There's nothing wrong with enjoying pushing the trolley down the

14:33

out of your painting the laundry or mowing the lawns or growing vegetables. I mean all of this stuff is equally valid. You don't just have to be jumping out of planes to enjoy retirement. And being still and being present in your own head and in your own space is just as important I think as well. I saw an ad the other day for a might have been for a financial retirement thing and it featured this couple who looked like they were in their 60s and they were he had the swept

15:02

gray hair all back and you know lush full of hair and and there was the the lady next to him and she had a full hair a hit of gray hair as well and they're hanging on to the steering wheel of a yacht and and they're looking very windswept and interesting and uh and I thought I don't know many people that look like that at sixty you know that's not that's not realistic who who looks like that and who has that kind of

15:30

you know, I guess that kind of retirement where you're on an expensive boat and you can afford to do all these incredible things. Like, I guess it goes back to what you were saying. It doesn't. It's the images, you know, how inclusive are those images? When we use images like that, how much do we include everyday people? And we did one of the other academics at Macquarie University.

15:57

Well, there are two others actually, the other ones left now, but there was two of us, three of us all together and we're having a look at images relating to retirement and what sort of images were available. Beaches featured prominently. Beaches, people walking on beaches with Labradors, people with- Have you met my friend Guy? Deck chairs, deck chairs, deck chairs. Is that you? Sorry, why have I just- No, I'm sorry.

16:27

The other thing with deck chairs, deck chairs everywhere, deck chairs on beaches, deck chairs on barandas, most of them empty. I was joking that one of the things I was going to do in retirement is buy myself a ute and just drive around all the beaches and the balconies and collect all these empty deck chairs and then sell them on eBay. And also the other weird thing when you look at these images is jars of money in gardens.

16:57

I mean, I don't know where, I don't know anyone who stores their money in a jar in the garden. But that also makes me want to take up more gardening at other people's places. I've got to say, Jo, many, many, many years ago, I had great aunts and that was something from the depression years. I know that they used to do. They used to sew money into cushions and bury money in the garden because they didn't have this faith in the banks from, you know, when

17:26

when the markets crashed back in the 20s. Where I'm going with that is perception is reality sometimes too. And as you were saying, you know, you have these visions of the windswept, you know, on the yacht and all that sort of thing. Now I used to go to a little bit of swimming and you'd see signs for over 55 swimming classes or an over 55 lifestyle village. And you'd see pictures of people that are in their late 70s on these things. All of a sudden,

17:54

over 55s, when did that become the magic number? It used to be 60 or 65 or 70. Is that regressive now? Are we all thinking, oh, gee, I need to think about this at 55? And what's been the premise behind the marketing to actually engage people at that age? Well, I think it's a really interesting question, isn't it? Because if you look at the definition of an older worker, you might be...

18:21

surprised to find that the ABSU is 45 years of age. And one of my students is actually having a look at this question about research of older workers and how do we define older workers even? You know, is it getting earlier and earlier? I mean, when we got rid of compulsory retirement age, of course, then I think the numbers started to shift around a bit then in terms of, you know, what was an older worker, what was an older person.

18:49

etc. But I don't think I've got any real answers to that except that part of this is going to be motivated like things, for example, of people being able to move into retirement villages. Maybe there's an incentive to get more people into retirement villages that are in that younger age group. So you start to talk about over 55s, maybe it will be over 50s in the future.

19:17

We're still seeing a majority of people retiring over 60 and close to 65, but maybe we will see more people retiring younger and not working as long as they want to try to get a bit more balanced and keep themselves physically and psychologically well and focus on that instead of potentially earning money. But a lot of that depends on finances and what you've been able to...

19:42

how you've been able to structure your working life to enable that possibility. My background's in media and I think from a media perspective, when you look at the demographics that are broken down for television, radio, et cetera, you have your 10 to 17s, your 18 to 24s, 25 to 39s, 40 to 54, and then 55 plus. Now, and that really irks me because that puts me in a demographic with my 80 year old mother.

20:10

And we couldn't be when she was alive, God rest her soul, we couldn't have been further apart in terms of our lifestyle choices and our thinking. And, you know, I'm a boomer, she wasn't. And I think as long as advertisers are doing that, and as long as they're gearing all their advertising to over 55s for, you know, incontinence pads and retirement, villages and funerals, it's the mindset when, you know, as I said earlier in the podcast,

20:40

the boomers have the most amount of money to spend when it comes to advertising and yet they're being almost completely ignored by all but one or two you know radio stations or um or tv stations because it's not hip to advertise to this demographic it's it's much cooler and most of the people in advertising are a much younger demographic so it's not sexy to appeal to us if you know what i mean yeah and maybe though

21:07

that recognition of doing that will and that segmentation of the market. They've been talking about segmentation a lot in the superannuation industry and trying to offer products that meet specific market segment demands. But I think what happens is it all becomes very homogenous, doesn't it? There's a view that...

21:33

you know, we're all pretty much the same, but also that all retirees are the same, they're going to need the same things. They're going to be interested in the same things. They're going to want to live in the same places. You know, whereas why would the diversity be any different over 55 than it is for 20 year olds? You know, one of the things I noticed with organizations is they went through a stage of just making every older worker a mentor.

22:00

And you challenge them about this idea of why do you think the only career paths are mentoring? Because you don't take every group of 20 something year olds who come in as graduates and decide that they're all going to be great people leaders. You don't say all of these people will be great leaders of people and great managers of people. You start to, you know, field out those people who...

22:27

show that leadership capability, that management capability, but why do we decide that all older employees are capable and want to be employed as mentors? I ask this question of a group of employees in an organization because the organization wanted to evaluate its mentoring program.

22:50

and to see whether or not this was the career path that they could offer to everybody over sort of 55. And the feedback was terrible. The feedback on the program was terrible. In fact, I never published a study because the business didn't want me to. And what it said was basically what we saw was that a lot of people wanted to specialize. They didn't want to do everything that they'd been doing in their roles. They wanted to take a segment of it.

23:19

like they wanted to start working with particular clients. Other people just wanted to work half days of the same job that they were doing. And some people pushed really hard back against the whole mentoring idea of being there just for the benefit of the next generation. They were saying things like, I don't know when they gave out the mentoring gene, but I wasn't in a line.

23:46

Another one said, I just got rid of my own kids. Why would I want to look after somebody else's? And someone else said, you know, quite insightfully, I've never been a good people manager. What do they think I'm going to be a great mentor for? You know, but that's like that single career path. Here's the opportunity of a lifetime. We want you as the older employees to now, you know, take care of the younger ones and give all your knowledge to them. That might not necessarily be the vision that everyone has for their...

24:16

older later working life. Yeah, we can't all be Yoda's or Obi-Wan Kenobi's can we? No, that's right. Who wants to be anyway? Have you seen those robes? You were mentioning sort of social connections and look, we've made a lifestyle change very recently and have you got any advice about

24:41

at a certain age, if everyone says, oh, let's move up the coast, let's move down the coast, let's move west of the divide and do that sort of thing. Maintaining or expanding your social network at that phase of life, it's a tough one, isn't it? It is, and it's interesting, when people think about moving, they'll often look at the house they're gonna be moving into, they'll be thinking about the house. Whereas I encourage them to have a look at the infrastructure, like how you're gonna get up and down from wherever you are to a hospital.

25:10

or to get back to people that you know? How do you maintain the connections you already have as well as build new ones? I've found that when people move, some social activities seem to work quite well. Like for example, things like dance classes, it seems to be a good one when people are connecting with new groups of people. The sports groups or anything similar to that, even if it's an exercise class.

25:40

of some sort is another great way of connecting with people. I think also to take those interests that you've got with you and before you even move, ask yourself the question, who's going to be my tribe when I move here? Where am I going to be able to connect with people? And having a look if there's anyone in that area with the similar interests or similar hobbies or where those connections are. And maybe don't move until you've tried.

26:09

maybe go there for a long holiday, maybe just try it out a bit before you pack everything up into the van and drive to the Central Coast or Gold Coast or anywhere else that you're thinking of moving. Maybe just try it out first and do a bit of research. Nothing wrong with spending a bit of time up there and poking about to see what sort of groups are available and how willing they are for new members.

26:37

Just finally, Jo, I wanted to ask you about people who find themselves single later in life. Often people hang on to marriages until the kids move out and then they all of a sudden get to 55, 60, whatever, even older and they decide that, you know what, my life's going past really quickly, I'm out of here. What challenges do people like that face about being finding themselves all of a sudden suddenly single at this age? I think, I mean, I've been in that boat. I've got...

27:07

I only got remarried six years ago. My husband had never been married before and he's 62 now, so we got married later. We met through speed dating. I'm not ashamed of it. I think it was a great idea and I still do. I also think sometimes it's difficult to go to those events on your own. It's good to have a wing woman or a wing man.

27:34

to go to events like that, social events, and also to connect with groups of people with like interests. I mean, even if you're keen to find a new partner, who wants to go to an event that has no interest for them? You know, who wants to go to a football game if you're not interested in football at all, just so that you can find the love of your life and then spend every Saturday at the footy during the footy season? No one wants to necessarily do that. So trying to follow those interests.

28:04

first and maybe taking someone with you, having a wing woman or a wing man to go along to those events. So maybe connecting with people that you can share those time with. I think the apps are getting a really bad rap at the moment in terms of the dating apps. I guess some people have found those successful as well. I think you gotta, it's a bit like putting a good portfolio together and you talk about spreading your risk. It's a bit like that really, trying lots of things and.

28:33

seeing what suits you. I really loved speed dating. I quite frankly couldn't get enough of it but other people who are more introverted might find that very intimidating. So having someone with them to go along to it might make it a bit easier. If there's one key takeaway from all of this or insights that you could offer, what would that be? I would say don't ignore your health while you're still working.

29:00

Even if you're in retirement, look after your health, do some things to keep yourself mobile and active. Even if you're having a bit of trouble finding that new tribe, persevere. Look at the meetup groups, look at community groups, and keep persevering. Really, most people will say you need five good friends. So if you've got five people that you know, that's enough to sustain you.

29:28

and having those regular catch up with those five people, even if it's one person a week, can be certainly more helpful to your mental health. So connect. Joanne, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and practical tips on how to make my retirement, your retirement, Kayleigh's retirement fulfilling, exciting chapter. We genuinely appreciate your time and thank you so much for being on the Big Six O. My pleasure. Thanks, Joe.

30:00

Oh, and before we go, let's give credit where credit is due. Kaylee Harris and I came up with all the genius content for this week's episode. Our producer, Nick Abood, well, he keeps the lights on and makes sure we don't accidentally upload a cat video instead of a podcast. So thanks for keeping us on track, Nick. Nick?