Living together full time? Middle-class couples approaching retirement

Abstract

A review of the research literature shows that research on the effects of male retirement on the relationship between husbands and wives is largely based on US populations. Moreover, there is a lack of recent empirical evidence on the marital relationship in middle-class, middle-aged couples living in the UK. A study of anticipatory thoughts about retirement voiced by 306 retiring senior managers and their wives is described. The most frequent focus of their hopes and fears was potential change in the marital relationship after retirement. Three times as many wives as husbands referred to their marriages as they speculated about retirement. A content analysis revealed four major themes. The most frequent was change in the emotional quality of the relationship followed by the conflict between spending time together and the loss of personal space. There was less emphasis on the implications for household management and the possibility of widow(er)hood. The verbatim comments also illustrate some other facets of marriage among middle-aged, middle-class UK couples in the 1990s.