Perceptions of and satisfaction with retirement: a comparison of six European union countries

The main aim of this study was to assess perceptions of and satisfaction with retirement among 1,686 recently retired people from 6 European Union countries. The authors compared their responses to a set of questions taken from the Retirement Satisfaction Inventory (F. J. Floyd et al., 1992). The first significant result was that Belgian, British, Finnish, French, and Spanish retirees all expressed very similar assessments of life satisfaction, whereas Portuguese retirees expressed a lower level of satisfaction. The 2nd result was that the major determinants of overall satisfaction in the 6 countries were (a) health and resources and (b) anticipated satisfaction. Finally, the data revealed that cultural background only accounted for a limited amount of variance in overall satisfaction with retirement.