2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Psychological factors in marital relationships before and after retirement
| Project/Area Number |
16530412
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Social psychology
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| Research Institution | Seitoku University Junior College |
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Principal Investigator |
OSADA Yukiko Seitoku University Junior College, Department of Care and Welfare, Professor (70172781)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
OSADA Hisao J. F. Oberlin University, Department of Gerontology, Professor (60150877)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2007
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| Keywords | marital relationship / retirement / marital satisfaction / stress / middle age / divorce in middle-age / role taking / family |
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| Research Abstract |
The questionnaire survey was conducted with 268 older adults of which 142 were male, 124 were female, 2 were unidentified. The average age of males was 64.0 (±6.6) and of females was 60.8 (±6.4), and about 60% of the males had experienced age-based retirement. In addition, 104 couples were confirmed in the sample. The primary results were as follows: 1. Significant differences were not found in the state of adaptation due to retirement. 2. We examined adaptation due to conditions of employment of the husband or wife. As a result, a tendency toward high degrees of depression were observed among wives in the group in which both were unemployed or both were employed. The degree of depression among husbands was especially high in cases in which the wife alone was employed. 3. In regard to the degree of contribution of roles in the household, both husbands and wives assessed that wives carried most of the burden, though disparities were observed in the frequency of contribution. Both the husband and wife tended to assess the degree of contribution of the spouse to be lower than that assessment by the spouses themselves. 4. When the discrepancy on the assessment for the contribution to roles in the household were large, wives' loneliness were high, and they tend to think that their married life persists due to convenience, inertia or appearances rather than intimacy. 5. In the free descriptive responses, the life curves, interview surveys, etc., there was an indication of a detached optimistic attitude by the husband toward the feelings of distress or resignation of the wife. It is important for the marital relationship, even after the children are grown, for the husband and wife to become conscious of these disparities in awareness.
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