Is Retirement a Crisis for Men? Class and Adjustment to Retirement

Abstract

Because paid work is taken to be central to manhood, scholarly and popular discourse have characterized retirement as presenting a “crisis of masculinity.” However, such a crisis is not borne out by research, perhaps because scholars have not considered how class might shape masculinities and thus expectations and experiences of retirement. Using data obtained from interviews with Finnish metal workers and engineers who are either approaching retirement or recently retired, we ask whether (1) this crisis discourse is reflected in their retirement expectations, (2) it matches their actual experiences of retirement, and (3) retirement disrupts the masculinities of some class groups more than others. We find evidence of this retirement crisis discourse in our respondents’ views of retirement, but not in their actual experiences, belying the homogeneity of masculinity implied by it. Class shapes both the perceived content of crises and the actual retirement experiences.