The Times They Are A-Changing: Researching Transitions in lifelong Learning
TRANSITIONS AND LEARNING IN THE LIFECOURSE: INSIGHTS FROM THE LEARNING LIVES PROJECT (SYMPOSIUM)
SUBMITTED BY:
Gert Biesta (University of Exeter, UK - on behalf of the ‘Learning Lives’ Team)
CRLL Conference - 22-24 June 2007
(University of Stirling, Scotland)
work in progress – please do not quote without consulting the authors
Address for correspondence:
Phil Hodkinson (University Of Leeds)
LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
E.C.StonerBuilding
LEEDS
LS29JT
UK
Tel: +44 (0)113 3433223
Paper 5: Learning and Change in the Transition into the Third Age
Heather Hodkinson and Phil Hodkinson (University of Leeds) and Geoff Ford & Ruth Hawthorn (NICEC)
Introduction
This paper is in two parts. First we analyse some complexities around retirement and the ‘third age’. Secondly, we consider the significance of learning as an integral part of the retirement transition process. Like the other papers in this symposium, this analysis derives from the Learning Lives research project. Here, we are drawing upon some of the qualitative data. At the time of writing (March 2007) our thinking and analysis of these issued was at a relatively early stage, so this paper is very much work in progress, and should be read as such. Much of what follows is necessarily tentative.
Retirement And The Third Age
There is an extensive literature about retirement and the third age, which makes clear that both these concepts are complex and contested. A working definition of the third age comes from Weiss and Bass (2002, p3).
“The life phase in which there is no longer employment and child-raising to commandeer time, and before morbidity enters to limit activity and mortality brings everything to a close, has been called the third age. Those in this phase of life have passed through a first age of youth, when they prepared for the activities of maturity, and a second age of maturity, when their lives were given over to those activities, and have reached a third age in which they can, within fairly wide limits, live their lives as they please, before being overtaken by a fourth age of decline.”
Gilleard and Higgs (2005) accept this definition, and argue that this ‘third age’ is a uniquely modern phenomenon, best understood through the complex interrelationships between the changing nature of social class, the lived experiences of the post-war ‘baby boomer’ cohort or generation, and the changing nature of community and social relations. One obvious problem with the term is that it relates to macro social conditions, which affect different people in dramatically different ways. People may enter or leave the third age at different chronological ages, and its central concept of freedom from constraint may never ring true for some people. Furthermore, as Walker (1996) makes clear, one of the very early writers about the Third Age, Laslett (1989, p4), argued even then that the Third Age was not a time period, but a type of quality of life. Thus, the second and third ages may run alongside each other, so that “no passage from one to the other need occur, for an individual with these characteristics is doing his/her own thing from maturity until the final end.”
The concept of retirement is as problematic as the third age. To begin with, there are at least four different definitions of retirement in widespread use. Reitzes and Mutran (2006) combine two, arguing that a person is retired if they have departed from fulltime employment (at least 35 hours a week) and think of themselves as retired. However, this definition excludes the possibilities that part-time workers can retire, that people may have retired even though they do not see themselves in that way, or that some retired people may work for more than 35 hours. Other often cited definitions include being in receipt of a state retirement pension, and being seen as ‘retired’ by others. Weiss (2005) argues that his academic ex-colleagues see him as retired, but his own self-perceptions are more ambiguous.
Our prime concern is not to clarify these complex definitional issues. Rather, we are drawing upon the stories of our research subjects to argue that there are many different patterns of transition out of ‘normal’ employed working life and that despite this complexity, for many people this transition is an on-going and often lengthy process. Reitzes and Mullan (2006, p334) argue that ‘retirement is not a single, one-step transition, but an adjustment process that extends over time’. For most people, this process begins before they retire, as they anticipate a changing future.
Within this understanding of retirement as a lengthy process, in many people’s lives there are symbolically significant events. The most obvious is the day of formal retirement from a main employer. Before this day a person is normally not retired on any definition. After it, either a person is retired by some definitions, or their retirement state is ambiguous. Even this is an oversimplification, as several of our sample ‘retired’ from a job such as the armed services, only to get a different fulltime job afterwards. Nevertheless, one useful way to get to grips with the complexities of the retirement transition is to consider what happens before and after such symbolic changes.
Anticipations of retirement
Several respondents approached retirement whilst doing a job that they perceived to be stressful or with which they were deeply dissatisfied. For such people, retirement was anticipated as an escape from a particular workplace. Elsie Sayers is a single woman, who had a career as an administrator in the then nationalised Gas Board. After the Gas Board was privatised there were many changes to working practices, sometimes changes from day to day. They were mainly changes which Elsie perceived as damaging established local good practice. She became very dissatisfied with work and chose to leave, retiring a year before she was 60, in 1989. For Elsie and for several others, retirement offered a way out of an undesirable situation, rather than being something that was attractive in its own right. The possibility of retirement opened up for Elsie the freedom to choose to leave the privatised gas company. This freedom to leave is one example of what is meant by ‘the third age’. Sheila Edwards retired from teaching at the age of 55, primarily because she wanted more time to do things for herself. For Sheila, retirement was attractive in itself, for the greater freedom it offered.
For others, like Jim Hussar, the decision to retire was less straightforwardly positive. He had worked for 20 years in an engineering works. The company closed down and as union convenor Jim was made redundant. Having work and supporting his family were of central importance to him, so he was willing to take any new work offered. He found a clearing up job at the sewage works amenable and stayed there for the rest of his working life, gaining some promotions but not wanting any significant responsibilities. The works reorganised several times and Jim recognised that the retirement deal he was offered at the age of 63 was too valuable to turn down. He had already invested his redundancy money and bought his council house. A key part of his decision-making was the knowledge that he would have had to retire in two years anyway and that without the deal he would be less well off. Retirement for him was a stage in life you had to face. He was prepared for it financially, but found the loss of employment hard to cope with.
Whereas Jim chose to go at the time when he could get the best financial deal, Stephen Connor had a form of retirement forced upon him. He worked for a national rental company for many years, and this will provide a pension next year, when he is 65. The rentals firm eventually closed down and Stephen had to move on. In his next job he worked on TVs and microwaves and supervised a team, but felt overworked and exploited. He eventually had a breakdown and was admitted to a mental hospital with depression. Thereafter he went for jobs requiring no responsibility, but unfortunately he suffered a further industrial accident, which has left him permanently in pain and with restricted leg movement. Since then he has been unable to get employment, and has in effect drifted into a ‘retired’ existence, as yet without a pension.
Retirement related to health problems was experienced by several of our sample. Jennifer Whitefield will be 60 this year, but at 50 she found her teaching job excessively stressful. After a year on sick leave she retired on the grounds of ill health. Whilst Jennifer’s ill health was directly linked to her stressful job, Derek Hutchinson’s health problems had independent causes, but impacted seriously on his main employment. He had been a highly skilled joiner and carpenter, gaining much satisfaction from the practical work and from solving work-based problems. He had to give up his fulltime building work, due to the onset of rheumatoid arthritis. He is registered disabled, but has been keen to continue working, undertaking a number of part-time jobs. He has now obtained permanent part-time work as a driver and caretaker, and has worked out for himself ways in which he can continue to drive despite his disability.
In such stories, the move towards retirement can be best understood as an on-going process. This process sometimes has stages, where people “downsize” voluntarily or otherwise, for example Jim’s progression from a demanding engineering job, through the period working in the sewage company, and into early retirement. In Derek’s case, there have been progressive changes to both his health and employment since he gave up his fulltime work in the construction industry. For Elsie, there was a period of increasing unhappiness post privatisation, before she eventually decided to leave the gas company.
Experiences of retirement
If anticipation of retirement is an on-going process, so is the experience after the event.
Many people, often but not exclusively men, continue with paid employment and do not think of themselves are retired at all. Derek Hutchinson has worked hard to get a series of jobs since his health forced him to give up his career in building. Peter Weddle is aged 80 but cycles daily to his work where he is employed on a permanent part-time basis as caretaker, health and safety officer, and general factotum. William Moore has run his own textile design business from home for many years but found that much of the manufacturing was shifting to the Far East. At age 61 he has recently gained employment in the international sales department of a local sheet music company where he is able to use his social and linguistic skills and his musical knowledge gained from being a keen amateur musician. William relishes the change of direction which enables him to socialise with colleagues rather than work in the isolated conditions of self-employment. The company has no upward retirement age, so William can continue working for as long as he wishes and feels able to do so.
Anna Reynard is another who does not see herself as retired, although she no longer has paid employment. She left her somewhat unsatisfactory job as a school teacher in her mid-fifties in order to study fulltime for a funded PhD. Since her studies were completed she has written a book, and taken on unpaid work teaching for her local branch of the University of the Third Age (U3A) and organising their walking group.
Whilst Anna says she is ‘not retired’ but living an active life, others perceive themselves as retired and active. Elsie Sayers has remained active, but having left the Gas Board, sees retirement as a different, but fulfilling stage in her life. In early retirement she moved house locally and spent time doing up her new flat, with friends. She then went on a trip to visit other friends in America. She reads a lot, watches television, goes walking regularly with a group of friends, and on outings by bus. A few years after retirement, she started going to community-based adult education classes, and took one course a year, for about ten years. More recent courses have inspired her less than, so she has decided to give this activity a break.
Others find retirement more difficult. Paddy Hammondretired as an officer from the Armed Forces twenty years ago and, despite working for a number of years in central and local government, has never settled to life outside the Forces. He has never achieved his aim of using his training experience to teach IT and survival skills, is now unemployed, and spends much of his time applying for jobs and writing letters of complaint if he suspects that he has been unsuccessful because of age discrimination. Jim Hussar did up his house to a high standard and went out a lot with his wife, but in the end he became bored, and depressed to the level of needing medication. The loss of his male work identity and community proved difficult to live with. What provided him with a renewed interest in life was becoming involved in the local community learning centre. Over several years he became enthusiastically committed to the centre, taking several classes a year both for the interest they provided and for the social interaction with local people of all ages and different backgrounds. He believes that the centre was helping to create a community within the deprived area where he lives. When the centre was threatened with closure, Jim helped lead a partially successful campaign to keep it open. In addition, his retirement is taken up by looking after his disabled son, taking his wife shopping and enjoying reading, watching rugby league, occasional betting and organising his investments.
In some cases retirement can become an dismal burden. George Watson retired at the age of 50, partly because he had been stripped of his Directorship. At about the same time his second marriage broke up very painfully. George applied for some jobs but did not gain an interview. After his wife left him he sold the house, buying a mobile home, leaving him with enough capital to invest in a small business. He opened a delicatessen. For a short while the business seemed successful but trade tailed off and after a year or two he had to give up the shop. At this stage George was still socialising with people in the village, being a regular at the local pub.
When George’s working life ended he tried to commit suicide. He felt that he had lost control of his life. He then began to feel unwell and was diagnosed as suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. George withdrew more into himself, wondering why he did not die. He misses having a car, takes no holidays and has ceased going to restaurants or the pub. Although he is invited to join activities in the village he elects not to. He is financially secure especially as his limited life style requires little funding. He does purchase items that may make his life more bearable. For example, he has had a bath hoist installed after he began to fear that he may not be able to bathe himself. In his own words, he has become “a bit of a hermit”. He claims to be happiest at bedtime, when he can “shut everything out”.
Retirement As Learning Through Transition
Much of the literature on learning and retirement focuses either on learning as preparation for retirement or on learning to meet the needs of people who have retired. In both cases there is a tendency to emphasise formal learning and the provision of courses and adult education classes, and a tendency to see older people facing retirement with deficits that need to be addressed, to enable them to cope. The stories of our sample show several examples of this sort of need, and also of the benefits that such formal learning can bring. Those stories also show that much learning through and about retirement is informal. Here we present a different way of understandingthe relationships between retirement and learning that better fits our data.
Our stories demonstrate retirement as a lengthy, transitional process. At whatever point a person is deemed to be retired, the process of transition will normally already be underway. In most cases there will be at least anticipation – positive, negative or ambivalent. The exception would be sudden, shock redundancy or forced early retirement such as Stephen’s, where the transition starts at that point. There is also the possibility of someone who refuses to think about retirement from work until it is upon them. Weiss (2005) shows that rapid forced early retirement often causes later problems in adjustment to the new situation, showing the significance of the period of anticipation, which is more normal. However, even for such people, there is a period of change as a person gradually moves from seeing themselves as temporarily out of work to seeing themselves as effectively retired. Throughout the period of anticipation of impending retirement, learning processes have already started. People react to their increasing age by perceiving the world differently. Elsie Sayers’ decision to retire from the Gas Board was made possible by her advancing age and by the anticipation of a better life. She was changing, even as her work circumstances also changed. The possibility of retirement meant that she did not have to learn to adapt to what she saw as worsening work conditions.