Later Life Families

Retirement is one of the most significant changes that face later life families. As has been stated above, the U-shaped pattern of marital satisfaction suggests that retirement may enhance satisfaction with the marital relationship. However, the process of transition from employment to retirement may pose a difficult challenge to many couples. During the transition stage, both husbands and wives tend to describe losses in marital quality (Moen, Kim, and Hofmeister 2001). The timing of retirement may be a source of marital conflict as well as the result of negotiation between the spouses. Deborah Smith and Phyllis Moen (1998) report that the husband's decision to retire is more likely to influence the timing of the wife's retirement than the other way round. Couples in which one partner retires while the other continues to work tend to experience greater marital discord, regardless of gender (Moen, Kim, and Hofmeister 2001).

Upon retirement, couples may spend more time together, which will either enhance the marital relationship or lead to increased conflict. There are gender differences in the perception of marital conflict and satisfaction following retirement. Maximiliane Szinovacz and Anne Schaffer (2000) state that husbands—but not wives—tend to perceive a decrease in the number of "heated arguments" following the retirement of the wife. The retirement of the husband is associated with an increase in calm discussions about conflictual issues in relationships where the spouses are strongly attached to the marriage. In contrast, the retirement of the husband may culminate in a decrease in calm discussions where one or both of the spouses are not strongly attached to the marriage.

Unlike their younger counterparts, the majority of today's older women did not work outside the home. Thus, the retirement of the husband and his increased presence in the home may result in a wife's sense that she has lost personal freedom and autonomy (Rosenthal and Gladstone 1994). The retirement of one or both spouses may necessitate the negotiation of personal space and domestic duties. Although the wife may have been primarily responsible for domestic tasks, following retirement there is often a lessening of a traditional gendered division of labor (Szinovacz 2000). In addition to increasing the amount of time spent on their own chores, retired spouses tend to spend more time doing tasks formerly designated the responsibility of the other spouse. Nevertheless, wives continue to spend a significantly greater amount of time on household labor than do husbands. The division of domestic labor following retirement has been found to be related to marital satisfaction. Couples who divide household chores more equitably tend to report higher levels of marital satisfaction than couples who adhere to more traditional definitions of gender roles and behavior (Rosenthal and Gladstone 1994).