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Research

Affiliations

Longitudinal & Survey Research

HRS Life History Project
Project Team: Jacqui Smith (PI), Mary Beth Ofstedal, Robert Willis, William Chopik

The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) includes birth cohorts who participated in the major demographic, economic and social transformation of the American people over much of the 20th century beginning with the AHEAD cohort born before 1923 through the late-Boomers born in 1960-65 who will enter HRS in 2016. These cohorts lived through the Great Depression and the Great Recession and all the good and bad times in between. They participated in World War II and in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. They are the parents and the children of the Post-WWII Baby Boom. The women are the grandmothers and mothers of the post-boom women whose fertility began to decline dramatically in the 1960s; who experienced a doubling of the divorce rate within a decade in the 1970s; a rise in the fraction of their births that occurred outside marriage; an increasing female labor force participation rate and investment in market human capital; and entry into previously male-dominated professions.  The HRS cohorts also participated in the major migrations from South to North, from East to West, from rural to urban areas, and from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt that transformed the geographic distribution of the U.S. population. This project uses these life history data to study the long-term influences of early- and mid-life biological, socioeconomic, health, psychosocial, and environmental factors on outcomes later in life.

Historical Contexts of the Lives of HRS Cohorts

hrs

Individual Projects on Wellbeing

Focus Group Study: Retirees
 

This focus group study (linked to the Well-Being R01) study was coordinated by Dr Shannon Mejia, a new postdoctoral fellow in the project, together with a new GSRA in the team, Hannah Giasson, and it was conducted with the professional assistance of the Survey Research Operations (SRO) unit of ISR.  Our overall aim was to address open questions about the sensitivity of the activities and feelings in the HRS 2012 short day reconstruction measure to changes in daily routines and experiences associated with the transition from work to retirement. Eight focus groups, each including eight to 12 people, were conducted in March and early April, 2015 (N = 79, age range 55-75). For many older adults, the transition from work to retirement represents a discontinuity in daily routine. The literature suggests that it generally takes a few years to adjust and develop a new lifestyle. For this reason, we designed the study to collect data about the experiences of recent retirees (four groups of participants who had retired within the last 2-years) and more established retirees (four groups including people retired for 5+ years).The moderator guided discussion to address: a) the process of adjusting to being retired (things missed about work, new activities and interests); and b) how/if the transition to retirement contributed to changes in the structuring (organization, planning) of activities in a week and the types of constraints on selection and time spent on activities (e.g., time, partners or other people). We were also interested in participants’ appraisals of specific affect and mixtures of emotions associated with activities that may have changed pre-post retirement. Each session was digitally recorded, and observers noted the specific times of topic changes and important comments. In addition to the qualitative discussion material, participants in the focus groups also completed the HRS day reconstruction measure, a short personality measure, and provided information about their previous occupation, and partner working status (if in a partnered household).