Do Predictors of Life Satisfaction Change in the Last Years Leading Up to Retirement? The Case of Job Satisfaction and Leisure Satisfaction

BackgroundPredictors of life satisfaction vary between people of different ages, but little is known about the role of specific life phases. We focused on the last years of work before retirement when it is often assumed that workers become less attached to their workplace and focus on other areas of life instead, such as leisure activity. Our aim was to test if the associations between domain satisfaction (job and leisure) and overall life satisfaction change in the years before retirement.MethodsWe applied a time‐to‐retirement metric in a latent growth curve analysis to longitudinal data from the German Socioeconomic Panel Study (n = 2520) to investigate whether the within‐person associations between (1) job and overall life satisfaction and (2) leisure and overall life satisfaction change in the 10 years preceding retirement.ResultsWe found that job satisfaction was positively associated with life satisfaction at the between‐and within‐person level, but the within‐person association weakened as workers approached retirement. The positive within‐person association between leisure and life satisfaction did not change significantly on the lead up to retirement.ConclusionsWe interpret the results as evidence for a potential preretirement work disengagement, either to support postretirement adjustment or to protect from negative work experiences, in line with lifespan theories on self‐regulation.