Retirement Adjustment
A Review of Theoretical and Empirical Advancements
Mo Wang
Kène Henkens
Hanna van Solinge
In this article, we review both theoretical and empirical
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
advancements in retirement adjustment research. After re-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
viewing and integrating current theories about retirement
adjustment, we propose a resource-based dynamic per-
spective to apply to the understanding of retirement adjust-
ment. We then review empirical findings that are associ-
ated with the key research questions in this literature: (a)
What is the general impact of retirement on the individual?
and (b) What are the factors that influence retirement
adjustment quality? We also highlight important future
research directions that may be fruitful for psychologists to
pursue in this area.
Keywords: retirement adjustment, older workers, resource
perspective
R etirement from work is one of the major life course
transitions in late adult life. Associated with this
transition, the question of how well individuals
adjust to retirement has been a focus of interest to research-
ers as well as to the popular media (Wang & Shultz, 2010).
Although retirement has received extensive study, the im-
pact of retirement on the individual and the factors impor-
tant for a successful adjustment in retirement still remain
less clear than other aspects of retirement phenomena (e.g.,
retirement decision making and retirement planning;
Wang, 2007). It is important to study retirement adjustment
because it directly provides information about how to im-
prove the quality of postretirement life. In addition, study-
ing retirement adjustment provides an opportunity for re-
searchers to understand how people simultaneously adjust
to internal (i.e., physical and psychological aging) and
external (i.e., lifestyle and societal norms) challenges in
their later life. Findings from this research have the poten-
tial to yield information about other complex adjustment
processes people experience when facing significant inter-
nal and external changes.
Until the 1960s, studies on retirement adjustment typ-
ically viewed retirement as a “crisis” event that created a
challenge to personal well-being (van Solinge & Henkens,
2008). Although researchers still view retirement as a chal-
lenging, life-changing event, it has been acknowledged in
recent studies that retirement may also have beneficial
effects (e.g., Mein, Martikainen, Hemingway, Stansfeld, &
Marmot, 2003; Wang, 2007). There is also growing recog-
204
University of Maryland, College Park
Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute and
Tilburg University
Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute
nition of the fact that the impact of retirement may vary not
only across individuals but also within individuals over
time. Thus, empirical studies have started to probe and
examine this heterogeneity in retirement adjustment (e.g.,
Pinquart & Schindler, 2007; van Solinge & Henkens, 2005,
2008; Wang, 2007). Nevertheless, little effort has been
invested in integrating the different theoretical perspectives
used by researchers to study this heterogeneity in retire-
ment adjustment. Therefore, the first purpose of this article
is to review and integrate current theories about retirement
adjustment and establish a resource-based dynamic per-
spective as a coherent theoretical framework to guide fur-
ther research on retirement adjustment. In particular, we
argue that retirement adjustment is a longitudinal process
during which retirees’ levels of adjustment (i.e., psycho-
logical comfort regarding the retirement life) may fluctuate
as a function of individual resources and changes in these
resources. Further, as in most other studies on this topic, we
assume that adjustment is reached when individuals are not
preoccupied with the retirement transition but are comfort-
able with the changed circumstances of life in retirement
(i.e., are able to integrate retirement into their lives; Good-
man, Schlossberg, & Anderson, 2006; Schlossberg, 1981).
The second purpose of this article is to review empir-
ical findings in retirement adjustment research. To organize
these empirical findings, we make a distinction between
retirement adjustment as a process of getting used to the
changed circumstances of life and the outcomes of this
process in terms of retirement adjustment quality. The
retirement adjustment process may be more or less chal-
lenging to retiring individuals, and this variability may
translate into differences in retirement adjustment quality
over time and across individuals. Consequently, the key
questions addressed in this review of empirical findings
include the following: (a) What is the general impact of
This article was published Online First February 21, 2011.
Mo Wang, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland,
College Park; Kène Henkens, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic
Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands, and Tilburg University, Tilburg,
The Netherlands; Hanna van Solinge, Netherlands Interdisciplinary De-
mographic Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mo
Wang, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park,
MD 20742. E-mail: mwang@psyc.umd.edu
April 2011 ● American Psychologist
© 2011 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/11/$12.00
Vol. 66, No. 3, 204 –213 DOI: 10.1037/a0022414

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Mo Wang
retirement on the individual (i.e., how well is the individual
getting used to the retirement life)? and (b) What are the
factors that influence retirement adjustment quality? We
aim to use this review to summarize the up-to-date knowl-
edge regarding these research questions. When reviewing
the empirical findings, we also tie them to the proposed
resource-based dynamic perspective when feasible and il-
lustrate the utility of applying this perspective to reconcil-
ing inconsistent theoretical predictions and improving fu-
ture studies.
At the end of this review, we highlight important
future research directions that may be fruitful for psychol-
ogists to pursue in this area. These future directions address
both methodological issues and empirical gaps in the liter-
ature. We hope the consideration of these future directions
will enrich the empirical findings about retirement adjust-
ment and provide additional knowledge for refining the
theoretical framework.
Theoretical Review and Integration
for Conceptualizing Retirement
Adjustment
The major theories that have been applied to the study
of retirement adjustment include role theory, continuity
theory, stage theory, the life course perspective, and the
resource perspective. Below, we first review each of these
specific theories. We then integrate them and conceptualize
retirement adjustment as a resource-based dynamic pro-
cess.
Role Theory
Role theory emphasizes the importance of the role exit and
the role transition in retirement adjustment. To the extent
April 2011 ● American Psychologist
that one is highly invested in a particular role (e.g., the
work role), feelings of self-worth tend to be associated with
the ability to carry out that role in an effective manner
(Ashforth, 2001). Therefore, being retired can be charac-
terized as a role transition (Riley & Riley, 1994), which
includes the processes of losing or weakening work roles
(e.g., the worker role, the organizational member role, and
the career role) and strengthening the family member role
and the community member role. Role theorists argue that
the role loss resulting from retirement transition can cause
people to feel anxious or depressed, which may lead to low
levels of well-being in retirement (Riley & Riley, 1994).
These feelings may be due to the functional importance of
work-related roles, which serve to maintain one’s positive
self-image (Feldman, 1994). Consequently, one’s life after
retirement might be viewed as less satisfying than one’s life
during the years when one was employed. On the other
hand, retirees with other role involvements or those who
retire from unpleasant jobs may be less troubled by, and
even pleased with, the loss of those work roles. For exam-
ple, for individuals who find their jobs stressful or burden-
some, retiring could be a relief from ongoing strains and
conflicts. Also, for individuals who would like to engage
more fully in the roles of family member and community
member, retirement is an opportunity for them to free up
time to enjoy the rewards and responsibilities tied to those
roles.
Continuity Theory
Continuity theory emphasizes the consistency of life pat-
terns over time (i.e., the accommodation of life changes
without the experience of stressful disruption; Atchley,
1999). According to Atchley (1999), there is considerable
continuity in identity and self-concept over the retirement
transition, and this continuity contributes to the individu-
al’s retirement adjustment. Rather than focusing on retire-
ment as a disruptive role loss, continuity theorists view it as
an opportunity to maintain social relationship and lifestyle
patterns. Thus, this theory predicts that there should not be
a significant drop in well-being when people transition
from work into retirement life unless severe difficulty in
maintaining those general patterns is experienced.
Stage Theory
The literature on employee retirement has recognized that
the workforce exit process often happens gradually and that
people may have multiple job exits and entries using var-
ious forms of bridge employment before they fully retire
(e.g., Wang, Adams, Beehr, & Shultz, 2009). As such,
retirement adjustment constitutes a long-term process dur-
ing which variation in retirees’ well-being may be ob-
served. This is indeed the premise put forth by stage theory
(e.g., Atchley, 1976; Gall, Evans, & Howard, 1997). Ac-
cording to stage theory, early in the transition to retirement,
retirees experience a honeymoon stage, in which they may
feel more energetic and satisfied as they pursue new activ-
ities and roles. Later on, retirees may experience a disen-
chantment stage, in which they realize that they have fewer
resources and/or had unrealistic expectations about retire-
205

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Kène
Henkens
ment. As time passes, retirees enter a reorientation stage,
during which they reevaluate their life status, accept limi-
tations, and focus on further adjustment to retirement.
Eventually, retirees enter the stability stage, settling into a
predictable daily life pattern until death or disability ter-
minates their retirement. So far, stage theory has received
little direct support from empirical studies. The strength of
this theory (i.e., making specific predictions regarding the
dynamic nature of retirement adjustment) may also be its
weakness because of the stringent pattern it predicts. Fur-
ther, the specific time course for each stage is also unclear.
The Life Course Perspective
The life course principle of “human agency within struc-
ture” implies that individuals have plans, make choices,
and undertake actions within the opportunities and con-
straints of their social worlds, which are shaped by personal
history and social circumstances (Settersten, 2003). The
life course perspective thus emphasizes that life transitions
are contextually embedded, which implies that the experi-
ences of retirement adjustment are contingent on the spe-
cific circumstances under which the adjustment occurs. For
example, a growing body of literature has revealed that
perceived control over the departure from the workforce is
crucial to retirement adjustment (e.g., Henkens, van
Solinge, & Gallo, 2008; van Solinge & Henkens, 2005).
These circumstances may also include individual attributes
(e.g., demographic characteristics, finance and health sta-
tus, and transition related abilities and skills; J. E. Kim &
Moen, 2002), individual history factors (e.g., how people
dealt with previous transitions, their work and leisure hab-
its, and their previous workforce participation patterns;
Orel, Ford, & Brock, 2004), and current and past job-
related experience (e.g., former job attitudes, former job
206
characteristics, and career trajectories; van Solinge & Hen-
kens, 2008; Wang, Zhan, Liu, & Shultz, 2008). The general
premise is that if an individual has cultivated a flexible
style in dealing with previous life transitions, is less so-
cially integrated with their work, and has the attributes that
help smooth and accomplish the transition, he or she will
be more likely to prepare well for the adjustment and to
achieve better outcomes of the adjustment (Wang & Shultz,
2010).
The life course perspective also emphasizes that the
experiences in one life sphere (e.g., work life) influence
and are influenced by experiences in other life spheres
(e.g., marital life). According to this concept of interde-
pendent life spheres, nonwork life spheres are important for
retirement adjustment because they provide retirees with
alternative salient identities after retirement and offer op-
portunities for retirees to engage in meaningful and desir-
able activities after retirement. Supporting this argument is
consistent evidence that individuals who are married and
strongly identify with their family roles have more positive
experiences in retirement (e.g., Calasanti, 1996). Van
Solinge and Henkens (2005) have also shown that adjust-
ment problems faced by one partner affect the quality of the
other partner’s retirement experience.
The Resource Perspective
Although the life course perspective provides a general
framework for analyzing retirement adjustment and points
to the utility of studying a broad range of variables, it offers
few concrete hypotheses about how these variables impact
retirement adjustment (Wang, 2007). Consequently, re-
searchers often rely on a resource perspective to predict
how variables may be associated with retirement adjust-
ment. According to Hobfoll (2002), resources can be
broadly defined as the total capability an individual has to
fulfill his or her centrally valued needs. Reviewing differ-
ent types of resources studied in previous retirement re-
search, Wang (2007) suggested that this total capability
may include the individual’s physical resources (e.g., mus-
cle strength; McArdle, Vasilaki, & Jackson, 2002), cogni-
tive resources (e.g., processing speed and working mem-
ory; Park, 2000), motivational resources (e.g., self-efficacy;
Bandura, 1997), financial resources (e.g., salary and pen-
sion; Hobfoll, 2002), social resources (e.g., social network
and social support; S. Kim & Feldman, 2000), and emo-
tional resources (e.g., mood and affectivity; Wang, Liao,
Zhan, & Shi, in press). The central premise of this resource
perspective for studying retirement adjustment is that the
ease of adjustment is the direct result of the individual’s
access to resources. Specifically, when people have more
resources to fulfill the needs they value in retirement, they
will experience less difficulty in adjusting to retirement. On
the other hand, decreases in retirees’ resources will have
adverse effects on their retirement adjustment. Therefore,
according to this perspective, to understand retirement ad-
justment, researchers should focus on examining variables
that have a direct impact on retirees’ different types of
resources.
April 2011 ● American Psychologist

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Hanna
van Solinge
Retirement Adjustment as a Resource-Based
Dynamic Process
After this brief review of the current theories about retire-
ment adjustment, it is important to note that each of them
can provide insight only into a specific aspect of retirement
adjustment. As such, a more integrated theoretical frame-
work is needed to account for the complex nature of re-
tirement adjustment and to guide the future research in this
field. To address this gap, we propose to apply a resource-
based dynamic perspective to further the theoretical devel-
opment of retirement adjustment. Specifically, we argue
that retirement adjustment is a longitudinal process during
which retirees’ levels of adjustment may fluctuate as a
function of individual resources and changes in these re-
sources. Therefore, instead of focusing on the absolute
good or bad impact that retirement has on retirees’ well-
being, we focus on the underlying mechanism through
which retirement has this impact. As illustrated in Figure 1,
by incorporating the resource perspective, variation in the
level of adjustment along the retirement adjustment process
can be viewed as a result of resource changes. In other
words, if over time (e.g., t4 to t5 in Figure 1) a retiree’s total
resource does not change significantly (e.g., because the
retiree successfully maintains prior lifestyles and activi-
ties), he or she may not experience a significant change in
adjustment level. Alternatively, if over time (e.g., t2 to t3 in
Figure 1) a retiree’s total resource significantly decreases
(e.g., through losing a major income source), he or she may
experience a negative change in adjustment level. Further,
if over time (e.g., t1 to t2 or t3 to t4 in Figure 1) an
individual’s retirement enables him or her to invest signif-
icantly more resources (e.g., through gaining cognitive
resources that were previously occupied by a stressful job)
in fulfilling centrally valued needs, he or she may experi-
April 2011 ● American Psychologist
ence a positive change in adjustment level. Thus, unlike
role theory, continuity theory, and stage theory, which we
reviewed earlier, this theoretical framework has the flexi-
bility to accommodate a variety of longitudinal patterns for
retirement adjustment. This flexibility significantly en-
riches the theoretical approach to understanding individual
differences in the longitudinal process of retirement adjust-
ment. This framework also relaxes the sequential assump-
tion regarding the development stages in retirement adjust-
ment (e.g., as specified in stage theory). Therefore,
recognizing the dynamic nature of retirement adjustment,
we contend that time courses are less important in describ-
ing the retirement adjustment process; retirees’ well-being
could fluctuate up and down at any given time point,
following the variation in their total resources.
Moreover, this resource-based dynamic perspective
can also be applied to identifying factors that may influence
retirement adjustment quality. Specifically, this framework
offers a large variety of antecedents that could influence
various retirees’ resources in the adjustment process, in-
cluding variables from the macro level, the organizational
level, the job level, the household level, and the individual
level, as illustrated in Figure 1. In addition, the central
constructs in the life course perspective, such as the char-
acteristics of the retirement transition, the contexts of re-
tirement adjustment, and the interdependent life spheres,
can all be viewed as pointing to variables that may influ-
ence retirees’ resources at different time points and in
different aspects of the adjustment process. Adopting the
resource-based dynamic perspective may lead to a more
comprehensive and fruitful examination of different factors
that influence retirement adjustment. It should be noted that
the utility of the resource-based dynamic perspective is
consistent with the “balance of resources to deficits” ap-
proach that is often adopted in understanding human
adaptation to transitions (e.g., Goodman, Schlossberg, &
Anderson, 2006; Schlossberg, 1981). This approach em-
phasizes that adaptation to a transition depends on the ratio
of resources to deficits in terms of the transition itself, the
pre–post environment, and the individual’s sense of com-
petency, well-being, and health (Schlossberg, 1981).
Finally, combining both the dynamic perspective and
the resource perspective to conceptualize retirement adjust-
ment also provides new opportunities for researchers to
understand other characteristics of the adjustment process.
For example, although role theory, continuity theory, and
stage theory provide specific predictions regarding the
downward and/or upward trends in retirees’ well-being
change over time, they may not be as informative in terms
of understanding the turning points (e.g., t2, t3, and t4 in
Figure 1) that connect two different trends in the longitu-
dinal adjustment process. However, if one adopts the re-
source perspective, it is not difficult to hypothesize that
certain individual differences (e.g., openness to change,
goal orientation in retirement, and need for structure),
which may impact retirees’ motivational resources, and
certain environmental factors (e.g., family support, com-
munity cohesiveness, and unemployment rate in the local
labor market), which may impact retirees’ financial and
207
 Figure 1
Illustration of the Resource-Based Dynamic Perspective for Understanding the Retirement Adjustment Process

Potential Antecedents*
Physical Resources
Macro Level Cognitive Resources
Societal Norms Motivational Resources
Government Policies Financial Resources
Social Resources
Organizational Level
Emotional Resources
Organizational Climate
Human Resource Practices
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Level of Adjustment
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Job Level
Resource Resource Resource
Job Conditions
Decrease Increase Unchanged
Job Attachment

Household Level
Marital Quality
Caregiving Demands

Individual Level
Health Behaviors
Psychological Resilience

Time

t1 t2 t3 t4 t5

Retirement Adjustment Process

ⴱ
Note. The potential antecedents for resource changes listed here are illustrative rather than exhaustive.

social resources, may predict how fast the turning points
will be reached for retirees who experience negative
change first but later experience positive change in their
well-being. This is because these individual differences and
environmental factors all facilitate retirees’ obtaining more
resources, which leads them to be more likely to switch
from the downward trend to the upward trend. Therefore, in
future studies, applying this resource-based dynamic per-
spective may further improve researchers’ understanding
about the form and the nature of the retirement process.
Empirical Findings
The empirical studies in the field of retirement adjustment
have mainly focused on seeking answers for the following
two research questions: (a) What is the general impact of
retirement on the individual? and (b) What are the factors
that influence retirement adjustment quality? Therefore, we
organize our review by examining empirical findings that
answer each of these two questions separately.
The Impact of Retirement
A large body of literature has considered the extent to
which retirees are psychologically comfortable with the
changed circumstances of life in retirement. Indicators of
this psychological comfort have included happiness (Beck,
1982), emotional well-being (Richardson & Kilty, 1991),
retirement satisfaction (Gall et al., 1997; Quick & Moen,
1998), life satisfaction (Calasanti, 1996), as well as mental
health and depression (e.g., Midanik, Soghikian, Ransom,
& Tekawa, 1995). These studies have in common that they
infer adjustment indirectly via outcome measures. Recent
literature has suggested more direct measures of adjust-
ment, such as retirees’ own evaluation of the difficulties
they had in adjusting to retirement and the amount of time
adjustment took (e.g., van Solinge & Henkens, 2005,
2008).
The literature has demonstrated a noticeable hetero-
geneity of findings in terms of the impact of retirement.
Some research has found that retirees, in comparison with
workers, tend to report greater depression and loneliness,

208 April 2011 ● American Psychologist

 lower life satisfaction and happiness, a less positive view
about retirement, and lower activity levels (e.g., J. E. Kim
& Moen, 2002; Richardson & Kilty, 1991). In contrast,
other research has found that most individuals tend to look
forward to retirement (e.g., Dorfman, 1992) as well as to
report being satisfied with retirement (e.g., Calasanti,
1996). Finally, retirement has been shown to be a benign
event with no apparent impact on an individual’s well-
being (e.g., Gall et al., 1997). Minimal differences in mea-
sures of mental health, coping, and health behaviors were
reported between workers and retirees within a similar age
range (e.g., Wu, Tang, & Yan, 2005).
To reconcile these inconsistent findings, Wang (2007)
hypothesized that multiple forms of retirement transition
and adjustment coexist in the retiree population. Using
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longitudinal data from two nationally representative sam-
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ples obtained by the U.S. Health and Retirement Study and
the growth mixture modeling technique (Wang & Bodner,
2007), he was able to consistently demonstrate that over an
eight-year period in the retirement adjustment process,
about 70% of retirees experienced minimum psychological
well-being changes; about 25% of retirees experienced
negative changes in psychological well-being during the
initial transition stage but then showed improvements af-
terward; and about 5% of retirees experienced positive
changes in psychological well-being. These findings sug-
gest that retirees do not follow a uniform pattern of retire-
ment adjustment.
Wang’s (2007) findings were further corroborated by
Pinquart and Schindler (2007). They used a nationally
representative sample of German retirees from the German
Socioeconomic Panel Study and found that during retire-
ment transition and adjustment, about 75% of German
retirees experienced trivial changes in life satisfaction;
about 9% of German retirees experienced a significant
decrease in their life satisfaction during the initial transition
stage but continued on a stable or increasing life satisfac-
tion trajectory thereafter; and about 15% of German retir-
ees experienced significant increases in their life satis-
faction.
Taken as a whole, both studies suggest that multiple
longitudinal change patterns in retirees’ psychological
well-being exist during the retirement adjustment process
and that these patterns correspond to different subpopula-
tions of retirees. As such, these findings support the mul-
tiple-pathway dynamic nature of retirement adjustment,
illustrating that the same retirement decision may lead to
different adjustment processes in retirement for different
retirees (Wang & Shultz, 2010). These findings also di-
rectly support the dynamic perspective we endorsed earlier,
because they demonstrate systematic changes in retirees’
well-being over time.
A separate area of research focuses on the impact of
retirement on health, as well as on more distal outcomes,
such as longevity and mortality. Similar to what we con-
cluded with regard to studies on retirement and psycholog-
ical well-being, the empirical findings on this issue are also
mixed. For example, Westerlund et al. (2009) investigated
more than 14,000 members of a French occupational cohort
April 2011 ● American Psychologist
seven years before and after retirement and found that
retirement was associated with a decrease in suboptimum
health. However, a longitudinal study of British civil ser-
vants by Mein et al. (2003) found that retirement had no
effect on physical health but was associated with an im-
provement in mental health. Finally, using data from seven
longitudinal waves of the Health and Retirement Study,
Dave, Rashad, and Spasojevic (2008) found that complete
retirement was associated with increases in illness condi-
tions and difficulties in mobility and daily activities as well
as with a decline in mental health over an average postre-
tirement period of six years.
Adding uncertainty to these inconsistent findings is
the fact that none of these studies explicitly examined the
extent to which retirees were psychologically comfortable
with their retirement life. Therefore, we simply still do not
know whether retirees who had higher levels of adjustment
to retirement enjoyed better health in their postretirement
lives. For example, individuals who smoothly complete the
process of social and psychological detachment from work
may feel healthier. This may be reinforced whenever their
postretirement lifestyle includes opportunities for positive
health behavior, such as exercise-related leisure activities.
Adjustment quality may also indirectly affect health. Re-
tirees’ lack of adjustment to their retirement life often
manifests as a risk factor for them to engage in maladaptive
coping behaviors. For example, empirical studies found
that lower levels of adjustment to retirement were associ-
ated with increased alcohol use (Perreira & Sloan, 2001)
and increased smoking (Henkens et al., 2008).
Factors That Influence Retirement Adjustment
Quality
Much research has been conducted in recent decades to
identify factors that influence retirement adjustment qual-
ity. However, the theoretical basis of most of these studies
remains rather implicit, with few hypotheses explicitly
formulated (Wang & Shultz, 2010). Further, these studies
usually focus on a relatively narrow set of explanatory
factors, despite the fact that a wide variety of predictors of
retirement adjustment quality have been considered in the
literature. These predictors can be summarized in five
broader categories: individual attributes, preretirement
job-related variables, family-related variables, retirement-
transition-related variables, and postretirement activities
(Wang & Shultz, 2010). Table 1 presents a summary of
these predictors’ effects on retirement adjustment quality,
as well as citations of sample empirical studies in which
these effects were identified.
In reviewing these empirical findings regarding the
predictors of retirement adjustment quality, it is important
to note that most of them are directly associated with
different types of resources that retirees have during the
retirement adjustment. For example, retirees’ physical and
mental health, preretirement work stress and psychological
and physical job demands, and postretirement leisure ac-
tivities are associated with their physical, emotional, and
cognitive resources. Retirees’ financial statuses, unemploy-
ment before retirement, number of dependent children,
209
 Table 1
Summary of Variables That Influence Retirement Adjustment Quality
Predictor category Variable Effect Sample empirical studies

Individual attributes
Preretirement job-related
variables
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Physical health ⫹ Dorfman, 1992; S. Kim & Feldman, 2000; van
Solinge & Henkens, 2008
Mental health ⫹ J. E. Kim & Moen, 2002; Wang, 2007
Financial status ⫹ Gall et al., 1997; Pinquart & Schindler, 2007;
Quick & Moen; 1998
Physical health decline ⫺ J. E. Kim & Moen, 2002; van Solinge &
Henkens, 2008; Wang, 2007
Work stress ⫹ Wang, 2007
Job demands ⫹ Quick & Moen, 1998; Wang, 2007
Job challenges ⫹ van Solinge & Henkens, 2008
Job dissatisfaction ⫹ Wang, 2007

Unemployment before retirement ⫹ Pinquart & Schindler, 2007

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Family-related variables
Retirement transition-
related variables
Postretirement activities
Note. Plus sign (⫹) denotes positive effect on retirement adjustment quality, and minus sign (⫺) denotes negative effect on retirement adjustment quality.
Work role identity ⫺ Quick & Moen, 1998; Reitzes & Mutran, 2004
Marital status (married vs. single/ ⫹ Pinquart & Schindler, 2007
widowed)
Spouse working status (working vs. ⫺ Wang, 2007
not)
Marital quality ⫹ Szinovacz & Davey, 2004; Wang, 2007
Number of dependent children ⫺ S. Kim & Feldman, 2000
Losing a partner during the transition ⫺ van Solinge & Henkens, 2008
Voluntariness of the retirement ⫹ Reitzes & Mutran, 2004; van Solinge &
Henkens, 2005, 2008
Retirement planning ⫹ Reitzes & Mutran, 2004; Wang, 2007
Retiring earlier than expected ⫺ Quick & Moen, 1998; Wang, 2007
Retiring for health care reasons ⫺ Quick & Moen, 1998
Retiring to do other things ⫹ Quick & Moen, 1998
Retiring to receive financial incentives ⫹ Quick & Moen, 1998
Bridge employment ⫹ S. Kim & Feldman, 2000; Wang, 2007; Zhan,
Wang, Liu, & Shultz, 2009
Volunteer work ⫹ Dorfman & Douglas, 2005; S. Kim & Feldman,
2000
Leisure activities ⫹ Dorfman & Douglas, 2005; S. Kim & Feldman,
2000
Anxiety associated with social ⫺ van Solinge & Henkens, 2005, 2008
activities

retirement planning, and bridge employment activities are
associated with their financial resources. Retirees’ marital
status, spouses’ working status, marital quality, and post-
retirement volunteer work and bridge employment are as-
sociated with their social resources. Retirees’ work role
identity, preretirement job dissatisfaction, and retirement
motivations are associated with their motivational re-
sources. Finally, involuntary retirement, losing one’s part-
ner during the retirement transition, and anxiety associated
with the retirement transition are linked with retirees’ emo-
tional resources. Therefore, the empirical findings in gen-
eral are consistent with the resource-based dynamic per-
spective we proposed earlier. All in all, these findings
suggest that resource change in important life domains is
associated with the variation in retirement adjustment
quality.
Future Directions in Retirement
Adjustment Research
Now that we have reviewed both theoretical and empirical
advancements in the retirement adjustment literature, we
propose several new research directions, based on the re-
source-based dynamic perspective, to help guide further
theoretical and empirical examinations on retirement ad-
justment. First, although personality variables and disposi-
tional traits have been shown to be important individual
resources that influence adjustment quality in other types of
life transition and adjustment processes (e.g., adjustment to
unfamiliar work and cultural environments; Wang &
Takeuchi, 2007), very few empirical studies have examined
them as predictors of retirement adjustment quality. One
exception is the study by Reitzes and Mutran (2004) that

210 April 2011 ● American Psychologist

 showed a positive relationship between retirees’ self es-
teem and their retirement satisfaction. Another exception is
a study by Gall et al. (1997) that showed a positive rela-
tionship between retirees’ internal locus of control and their
retirement adjustment quality. Given that personality vari-
ables and dispositional traits are important for people in
conducting emotional appraisals, setting up motivational
priorities, and choosing coping strategies (Löckenhoff, Ter-
racciano, & Costa, 2009), more research should focus on
explicating how these variables may influence retirement
adjustment quality.
Second, an evaluation of the literature on the impact
of retirement reveals that most studies adopting a resource-
based perspective have concentrated only on a narrow set
of resources, in particular on retirees’ health and wealth
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
(Wang & Shultz, 2010). As a result, social resources and
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
the spouse’s resources have received less attention. A
broader view that recognizes the impact of the social net-
work may advance the existing literature on the prediction
of retirement adjustment quality. In achieving this goal, the
recent conceptualization of the role that “embeddedness”
plays in an individual’s career adjustment may be particu-
larly relevant. Embeddedness refers to a number of factors
contributing to how enmeshed the individual is in his or her
job, organization, and community (Feldman, 2007). To the
extent that retirees can draw resources from the social
environment in which they are embedded their retirement
adjustment may be facilitated.
Third, although Quick and Moen (1998) have already
demonstrated that it might be fruitful to systematically
examine the impact of different retirement motivations on
retirees’ adjustment quality, few studies have done so. As
a result, despite the fact that motivation research has made
significant theoretical progress in conceptualizing the ad-
justment and coping process as a resource-based self-reg-
ulatory process (Wang et al., in press), this progress has not
been applied to advance our understanding about the re-
tirement adjustment process. Related motivational theories,
such as affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano,
1996) and social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997), may be
able to tie the examinations of retirement motivations and
postretirement activities together and inform the processes
that underlie retirement adjustment.
Fourth, although many self-help strategies have been
proposed and described in popular media that aim to im-
prove adjustment to retirement, little research has been
conducted to specifically evaluate the effectiveness of these
different self-help strategies. Given that many of these
strategies have roots in established clinical and counseling
psychology practices, we are confident that they would be
effective in terms of addressing the stress and anxiety
associated with the major life change embedded in the
retirement transition. Nevertheless, whether these self-help
strategies may improve the adjustment to retirement in a
more general sense is still unclear. We urge future re-
searchers to address this issue in a more systematic way.
Fifth, few studies have examined the effect of variables
related to the socioeconomic context on retirement adjust-
ment. These variables may include labor market demands,
April 2011 ● American Psychologist
macroeconomic trends, government policies related to retire-
ment (e.g., the Social Security and Medicare programs), and
the social norms for retirement. To the extent that these
variables may directly or indirectly influence retirees’ re-
sources, they could have an important impact on retirees’
adjustment quality. For example, the only study (Pinquart &
Schindler, 2007) that linked the regional labor force market to
retirees’ adjustment showed that retirees who retired in a
region where the unemployment rate was higher were more
likely to experience increased life satisfaction than their coun-
terparts who retired in a region where the unemployment rate
was lower. This finding might have resulted because retire-
ment constitutes an escape from the job insecurity and stress
associated with labor markets in which jobs are difficult to
find, thus saving retirees’ emotional and cognitive resources.
Sixth, in terms of research designs, the vast major-
ity of previous studies in the field of employee retire-
ment research have relied on cross-sectional designs.
Although cross-sectional designs may be useful in es-
tablishing correlations between variables, it is difficult to
capture the dynamic nature of the retirement adjustment
process with them. Further, it is difficult to make sound
causal inferences on the basis of correlational findings.
Indeed, to test the resource-based dynamic perspective
we are proposing here, one will need to directly examine
how changes in resources over the course of retirement
adjustment may lead to corresponding changes in retir-
ees’ well-being. Modeling retirement adjustment as
well-being change trajectories, as Wang (2007) and Pin-
quart and Schindler (2007) did, may help researchers
directly test this theoretical framework. Therefore, we
recommend that future research use more longitudinal
designs to provide more information for understanding
the causal processes.
Another methodological issue in previous retirement
adjustment studies is that most studies rely on only a single
or limited number of indicators of retirement adjustment
quality. However, different adjustment indicators may be
sensitive to changes in different types of resources. For
example, retirees’ psychological well-being may be more
sensitive to changes in emotional and cognitive resources,
whereas their physical well-being may be more sensitive to
changes in physical resources. Therefore, to increase un-
derstanding of the resource-based dynamic process in re-
tirement adjustment, future studies should consider a more
comprehensive view of the indicators of retirement adjust-
ment.
Conclusion
In summary, in this article we have reviewed both the-
oretical and empirical research on the retirement adjust-
ment process. Integrating theories that have been applied
to the study of retirement adjustment, we propose to
conceptualize retirement adjustment as a resource-based
dynamic process in which retirees’ levels of adjustment
may fluctuate as a function of resource change. We also
summarized the up-to-date knowledge about the general
pattern of retirement adjustment, as well as the predic-
tors and consequences of retirement adjustment quality.
211
 Understanding these empirical findings is particularly
important for helping to improve individuals’ adaptation
to retirement and their life quality in retirement. Finally,
we discussed several future directions for retirement
adjustment research based on the resource-based dy-
namic perspective. It should be noted that the theoretical
and empirical advancements reviewed in this article are
bounded by their specific socioeconomic and policy
contexts. Changes have often occurred in these contexts
(e.g., Social Security reform, health care reform, and
early retirement incentive practices), which can alter the
research questions investigators ask (Wang & Shultz,
2010). Researchers should be aware of the shift in these
contexts when studying these phenomena and should
also be prepared to tackle problems that emerge in
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
practice.
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