Abstract
This study compared differences in degree of happiness, social support, activities performed, and health and economic situation among retirees from urban and rural areas in Minas Gerais State in Brazil. The influences of these predictors over individuals’ level of happiness were also analyzed.We included 279 retired individuals living in Abre Campo (a municipality with a population fewer than 20,000 inhabitants, which is considered a rural area) and in Belo Horizonte (a municipality with a population of almost 2.5 million inhabitants, which is considered an urban area). Participants responded to a questionnaire that included scales of happiness, social support, diversity of activities, and issues about satisfaction with health and economic situation. Retirees from the urban area had a higher happiness level than retirees from the rural area (β = 0.16). The most important predictors of happiness were health (β = 0.42), social support (β = 0.26), and economic situation (β = 0.15), but no moderation effects of urban and rural areas were found. Our findings support the implementation of actions to offer financial planning before retirement and to stimulate social support and health promotion for retirees, particularly given the importance of these factors in perception of happiness.
Highlights
The interest of psychologists in the characteristics and positive experiences of life—such as happiness—developed in the beginning of the twentieth century with the positive psychology movement (Seligman 2002). Csikszentmihalyi and Hunter (2014) claimed that a good level of happiness is achieved when a person experiences a high degree of positivity or pleasant affect, such as joy, pride, and satisfaction with his/her own life, as well as a low degree of negativity or unpleasant affect, such as sadness, depression, and envy
In retirement seen through positive psychology, happiness is related to the concept of successful aging (Adams and Taylor 2015)
Data collection resulted in 279 completed questionnaires (48% from retirees living in the urban area and 52% from retirees living in the rural area); more than half of participants were female (60.0% vs. 39.4% male)
Summary
The interest of psychologists in the characteristics and positive experiences of life—such as happiness—developed in the beginning of the twentieth century with the positive psychology movement (Seligman 2002). Csikszentmihalyi and Hunter (2014) claimed that a good level of happiness is achieved when a person experiences a high degree of positivity or pleasant affect, such as joy, pride, and satisfaction with his/her own life, as well as a low degree of negativity or unpleasant affect, such as sadness, depression, and envy. A happy person is not one who does not experience depression but someone who has experienced a good number of emotions and has positive cognitive status with regard to different aspects of life (Lyubomirsky et al 2005). The changes in lifestyle for people to be retired is devalued by society and sometimes equated to uselessness. This can occur when retirees have placed the work in the central position of their life compared to other aspects, turning the end of working into a negative experience (Gallo 2013; França 2012). Retirement can be seen as an advantage or gain, especially in terms of additional time available for performing and developing other projects and adopting a new lifestyle (França 2012)
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