Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the meanings of retirement and leisure for older women. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 women aged between 58 and 83 years. Grounded theory method with Constant Comparison was used in the interviews and analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Five themes associated with the meaning of retirement emerged: (a) freedom, (b) end of paid employment, (c), resistance, (d) need to be useful, and (e) husband’s retirement. The definitions the women assigned to the term “retirement” and their meanings of leisure appear to form a pattern. Women who resisted or needed to be useful in retirement tended to construct service-centered lives and de-emphasized leisure, whereas, the other women constructed lives around leisure and felt entitled to this lifestyle. We suggest this model expands upon Price’s (1998; 2000) grounded theory of professional women’s retirement by addressing the multiple definitions of retirement and leisure among retired women.
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