Pre-Retirement Planning and the Retirement Experience: A Qualitative Pilot Study

Background and Purpose:
Retirement is a major life transition with implications extending beyond financial security to include psychological, social, and health outcomes. Although research often focuses on financial readiness, less is known about how individuals experience retirement and the role pre-retirement planning plays in shaping adjustment. Guided by Continuity Theory and a phenomenological framework, this pilot study explores how older adults describe the role of pre-retirement planning in shaping their transition into retirement and their well-being across identity, routines, and social engagement.

Methods:
Fifteen retirees participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews examining experiences of retirement planning, transition, social engagement, physical routines, service use, and meaning-making. Participants ranged in age from 56 to 87 and represented varied retirement pathways, including planned, delayed, and involuntary retirement. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using iterative thematic analysis informed by phenomenological principles. Coding progressed from open coding to focused thematic development, with Continuity Theory used as an interpretive lens during later analytic stages.

Findings:
Participants described retirement as an ongoing process rather than a discrete event. Findings indicate that the presence or absence of pre-retirement planning significantly shaped adjustment. When retirement occurred under constrained or unplanned circumstances, participants reported disruptions to identity, daily routines, and social roles, often accompanied by emotional ambivalence and uncertainty. Conversely, participants who preserved or reconstructed continuity through identity extension, routine rebuilding, and role substitution experienced retirement as stabilizing and meaningful. Structural conditions, including health insurance, caregiving responsibilities, and institutional guidance, further shaped the extent to which individuals could maintain continuity.

Conclusion and Implications:
Findings suggest that retirement adjustment is best understood as a process of adaptive continuity shaped by both individual strategies and structural conditions. Results highlight the importance of holistic retirement preparation that addresses identity, routines, and social engagement in addition to financial planning. Social workers are well positioned to support retirement transitions through interventions that strengthen continuity, expand community engagement, and address structural barriers affecting well-being in later life.