Adjustment among Elderly Retired Working and Nonworking Persons – A Comparative Study

Retirement tends to be perceived by society as a period characterized by passivity, social withdrawal, and physical and mental decline. The fact that people in retirement have withdrawn from economic endeavor tends to lower the esteem in which they are held by the community even though the withdrawal may be forced upon the individual by reason of compulsory retirement at a fixed age. The fact that retired people represent a largely untapped resource in local communities is generally ignored. These are the negative aspects of the overall picture. Keeping this as background an attempt made to assess the level adjustment in elderly retired working and nonworking persons. For the study purpose 309 elderly persons were included, 199 were male and remaining 110 were female. Among them retired working male were 99 and retired nonworking male were 100 and retired working female were 29 and retired nonworking female 81. Shamshad – Jasbir Old Age Inventory (SJOAI) an adjustment scale measuring 6 areas namely Health, Home, Social, Marital, Emotional and Financial adjustment was used. Two-way ANOVA was employed to find out the influence of group and gender on adjustment. Results revealed that retired working persons have better adjustment compared to retired nonworking persons. Apart from the area health adjustment, in all other areas male and female individuals did not differ significantly in their level of adjustment. The interaction effects between type of group and gender were found to be non-significant for the different areas of adjustment and overall adjustment.