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. 2023 Aug 2;78(8):1365-1374.
doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbad066.

Historical and Cross-Country Differences in Life Satisfaction Across Retirement in Germany and Switzerland From 2000 to 2019

Georg Henning  1 , Isabel Baumann  2   3 , Oliver Huxhold  1
Affiliations

Historical and Cross-Country Differences in Life Satisfaction Across Retirement in Germany and Switzerland From 2000 to 2019

Georg Henning et al. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. .

Abstract

Objectives: Recent trends, such as changes in pension systems or cohort differences in individual resources, have altered the face of retirement transitions. Little is known about how these trends have affected older people's life satisfaction around retirement age in the past decades. In this study, we investigated how levels and changes in life satisfaction before and after retirement changed over historical time in Germany and Switzerland.

Methods: We used longitudinal data from the German Socioeconomic Panel Study and the Swiss Household Panel (SHP) from 2000 to 2019. Level, preretirement change, and short- and long-term change in life satisfaction (0-10) after retirement were predicted by year of retirement (2001-2019) in a multigroup piecewise growth curve model.

Results: We found improvements in levels of life satisfaction and preretirement changes in life satisfaction with historical time in both countries. Furthermore, we found that unlike in Switzerland, short-time changes in life satisfaction across retirement improved over historical time in Germany.

Discussion: Our findings imply that life satisfaction trajectories around retirement age have improved over the last 20 years. These findings may be explained by general improvements in the health and psychosocial functioning of older people. More research is needed to show for whom these improvements are stronger or weaker and if they will be maintained in a changing retirement landscape.

Keywords: Education; Life satisfaction; Retirement; Social change.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
A piecewise latent growth model of change in life satisfaction from 3 years before retirement to 5 years in retirement.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Historical differences in life satisfaction across retirement. Historical improvements are significant for intercepts, and preretirement slopes in both samples, but for the short-term change only in the SOEP.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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