Préface de Claudine Attias-Donfut

The “Transitions from working life to retirement” (Passages de la vie active à la retraite) survey conducted in France in the 1980s was a landmark in the field. First, by its method—the longitudinal approach—which made it possible to follow the individual retirement trajectories of wage earners born in 1922, a cohort, as one of the first to benefit from retirement at age 60, with emblematic status. The survey was also influential by its results, which made clear that this period of life was generally positive.

Fifteen years have gone by. The present book takes us into the world of people now in their 70s, by comparing them with what they were like when they stopped working. In 1997, 80% of the surviving population, or 940 persons, took part in a new round of interviews. The domains analysed in the original survey have all been “revisited”: socio-demographic characteristics (family, incomes, housing, health), lifestyle (contact with family and friends, leisure activities) and inner emotions (perception of self, of retirement, feelings of boredom, loneliness). The book ends with a typology of lifestyles in retirement.

Overall, the study emphasizes the continuities in behaviour. Despite reduced activity and a life increasingly centred on the home, the great majority of those surveyed were happy with their retirement and were still only on the threshold of old age. Sadly, this stage has often already begun for those beset by poor health or the loss of their partner, events which accelerate withdrawal from the outside world.

Chapitre 1 – L’environnement familial

I. Les événements familiaux

II. La composition des ménages

Chapitre 2 – La situation économique

I. Les ressources

II. Les modifications du patrimoine et du cadre de vie

Chapitre 3 – La santé

I. L’état de santé global

II. Les troubles, maladies chroniques ou infirmités

III. L’autonomie dans la vie courante

IV. La consommation de médicaments

Chapitre 4 – Les solidarités familiales

I. Les rencontres

II. Les services rendus aux enfants

III. Les aides reçues par les parents

Chapitre 5 – Les relations amicales

Chapitre 6 – Les loisirs

I. Les loisirs de type sportif, artistique, culturel ou de société

II. Télévision, radio, livres, journaux

III. Les associations

IV. Les vacances

Chapitre 7 – Les aspects psychologiques

I. Perception de la vie, perception de soi

II. Perception de la retraite

III. S’ennuyer

IV. Le sentiment de solitude

V. Les tendances dépressives

Chapitre 8 – Typologie des modes de retraite

I. La retraite loisir

II. La retraite conviviale

III. La retraite intimiste

IV. La retraite retranchée

V. La retraite abandon

Conclusion, Annexe