Retirement’s Impact on Quality of Life and Purpose in Life

Abstract

A study on participants in pre-and post-retirement phases was taken up to understand their quality of life (QoL) and purpose in life (PIL). A relationship between the two was also seen. A survey questionnaire was used with a modified Purpose in Life scale (Boyle et al., 2009) and CASP-19 (Hyde et al., 2003) for measuring PIL and QoL respectively. The sample taken comprised of participants who were about to retire (n=33) and participants who had already retired (n=33), with a total sample size of 66, between the ages of 55 to 70. A comparison of means and Pearson’s product correlation methods were used for data analysis. There was a positive correlation found between QoL and PIL (r=.594, p<0.01). Thus, it was concluded that PIL and QoL are positively correlated, but there seemed to be no immediate effect of retirement on them.