| Abstract: | Proposes and tests a mediational model linking the experience of retirement with marital satisfaction. The experience of retirement (financial strain, time structure, a sense of purposefulness, and interpersonal contacts) is held to predict marital satisfaction indirectly though its sequential effects on context-specific well-being (retirement-specific satisfaction with health, activities, and peers) and context-free well-being (depressive symptoms). Both this model and a revised model in which retirement satisfaction also exerted a direct effect on marital satisfaction were supported using structural equation modeling in data from 164 retirees (mean age 69 yrs). An alternative model in which depressive symptoms assume a predictive rather than mediational role was not supported; cross-lagged regression analyses excluded the possibility that marital dissatisfaction resulted in depressive symptoms. The conceptual and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
