News Release

The importance of workplace relationships post-retirement

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Wiley

Amsterdam, Netherlands—August 17, 2010—The influence of traditional social structures such as neighbourhoods and local organisations has declined. The workplace has become the "new neighbourhood" and has become increasingly important for maintaining social interaction and forming relationships. A new article in Personal Relationships finds that those who retired just ten years ago, at the beginning of the 21st century, were more likely to maintain (or even gain) work-related personal ties after retirement, than were those who retired in the 1990's. Furthermore, a majority of more recent retirees have at least one work-related tie in their personal network. This finding applies to both male and female retirees.

Lead author Rabina Cozijnsen explains the findings, "We found that those who retired more recently were more likely to maintain at least one personal tie after retirement than those who retired earlier. In other words we discovered that a particular relationship at work was so important that they decided to continue the relationship. Retirement is often seen as a very disruptive life event. The notion that people lose their work-related ties after retirement, because they no longer see one another at work, needs to be reconsidered, in terms of well-being and the aging process."

Previous studies have shown that people tend to lose these ties following retirement when they no longer see one another at work. The authors of the current study examined how retirement influences personal ties that have been primarily developed at work, comparing the post-retirement personal lives of participants who retired between 1992 and 1995 with persons who retired between 2002 and 2005. The data for this study is based on the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA).

The authors hypothesize that the reason for this shift in the division of work and personal life can be accounted for due to a move towards increased individualization on a societal level, and an increased importance in developing and maintaining personal and professional networks throughout life.

###

This study is published in a forthcoming issue of Personal Relationships. Members of the media may request a full-text version of this article by contacting scholarlynews@wiley.com.

To view an abstract of this article please visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2010.01283.x/abstract.

Article: "Maintaining Work-Related Personal Ties Following Retirement." Rabina Cozijnsen, et. al. Personal Relationships; Published Online: July 21, 2010 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2010.01283.x).

Rabina Cozijnsen is a PhD Candidate at the department of Sociology at VU University Amsterdam. Her research focuses on how retirement affects social, personal, health and economic resources. She can be reached for questions at r.cozijnsen@fsw.vu.nl.

About the Journal: Personal Relationships first published in 1994, is an international, interdisciplinary journal that promotes scholarship in the field of personal relationships using a wide variety of methodologies and throughout a broad range of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, communication studies, anthropology, family studies, child development, social work, and gerontology.

About Wiley-Blackwell Wiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, with strengths in every major academic and professional field and partnerships with many of the world's leading societies. Wiley-Blackwell publishes nearly 1,500 peer-reviewed journals and 1,500+ new books annually in print and online, as well as databases, major reference works and laboratory protocols. For more information, please visit www.wileyblackwell.com or our new online platform, Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), one of the world's most extensive multidisciplinary collections of online resources, covering life, health, social and physical sciences, and humanities.


Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.