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AGING CONCEPTS AND CONTROVERSIES, Fifth EditionHarry R. Moody, Director of Academic AffairsPine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2006

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.. Reading 27 .

THE BUSY ETHIC

Moral Continuity Between Work and Retirement

DAVID J. EKERDT

There is a way that people talk about retirementthat emphasizes the importance of being busy.Just as there is a work ethic that holds industri-ousness and self-reliance as virtues so, too, there

is a "busy ethic" for retirement that honorsan active life. It represents people's attempts tojustify retirement in terms of their long-standingbeliefs and values.

Source: 'The Busy Ethic: Moral Continuity Between Work and Retirement" by David J. Ekerdt in The Gerontologist, vol. 26,no. 3, pp. 239-244,1986 .. Copyright © The Gerontological Society of America. Reprinted by permission. This research wassupported in pan by the Medical Research Service of the Veterans Administration and by grants from the Administration onAging (90-A-1194) and the National Institute on Aging (AG02287). The author thanks Raymond Bosse. Thomas Cole, andLinda Evans for helpful comments.

254 .:. IS RETIREMENT OBSOLETE?

The modem institution of retirement hasrequired that our society make many provisionsfor it. Foremost among these are the economicarrangements and mechanisms that supportSocial Security, private pensions, and otherdevices for retirement financing. Political under-standings have also been reached about thecJaimof younger workers on employment and theclaim of older people on a measure of incomesecurity. At the same time, our cultural map ofthe life course has now been altered to include aseparate stage of life called retirement, much asthe life course once came to include the newstage of "adolescence" (Keniston, 1974).

Among other provisions, we should alsoexpect that some moral arrangements may haveemerged to validate and defend the lifestyle ofretirement. After all, a society that traditionallyidentifies work and productivity as a wellspringof virtue would seem to need some justificationfor a life of pensioned leisure. How do retireesand observers alike come to feel comfortablewith a "retired" life? In this [essay] I will suggestthat retirement is morally managed and legiti-mated on a day-to-day basis in part by an ethicthat esteems leisure that is earnest, occupied. andfilled with activity-a "busy ethic." The ideas inthis [essay] developed out of research on theretirement process at the Normative AgingStudy. a prospective study of aging in commu-nity-dwelling men (Bosse et al., 1984).

The Work Ethic in Use

Before discussing how the busy ethic functions, itis important to note a few aspects about its parentwork ethic. The work ethic, like any ethic, is a setof beliefs and values that identifies what is goodand affirms ideals of conduct. It provides criteriafor the evaluation of behavior and action. The workethic historically has identified work with virtueand has held up for esteem a conflation of suchtraits and habits as diligence, initiative, temperance,industriousness, competitiveness, self-reliance, andthe capacity for deferred gratification. The workethic, however, has never had a single consistent

expression nor has it enjoyed universal assentwithin Western cultures.

Another important point is that the work ethichistorically has tom away from its context,become more abstract and therefore more widelyuseful (Rodgers. 1978). When the work ethic wasCalvinist and held out hope of heavenly rewards,believers toiled for the glory of God. When 19thcentury. moralists shifted the promise towardearthly rewards, the work ethic motivated themiddle class to toil because it was useful to one-self and the common weal. The coming of themodem factory system, however, with its painfullabor conditions and de-emphasis on the self-sufficient worker. created a moral uncertaintyabout the essential nobility and instrumentality ofwork that made individuals want to take refuge inthe old phrases and homilies all the more. Aswork ideals became increasingly abstract. theygrew more available. Rodgers (1978) pointed outthat workingmen now could invoke the workethic as a weapon in the battle for status and self-respect, and so defend the dignity of labor andwrap themselves in a rhetoric of pride. Politiciansof all persuasions could appeal to the work ethicand cast policy issues as morality plays. aboutindustry and laziness. Thus, despite the failedspiritual and instrumental validity of the workethic, it persisted in powerful abstraction. A_~ditis an abstract work ethic that persists today lack-ing. as do many other of our moral precepts. thosecontexts from which their original significancederived (Macintyre, 1981). While there is con-stant concern about the health of the work ethic(Lewis, 1982; Yankelovich & Immerwhar, 1984),belief in the goodness of work continues as apiece of civic rhetoric that is important out of allproportion to its behavioral manifestations or util-itarian rewards.

Among persons approaching retirement, sur-veys show no fall-off in work commitment andsubscription to values about work (Hanlon, 1983).Thus, assuming that a positive value orientationtoward work is carried up to the threshold ofretirement, the question becomes: What do peopledo with a work ethic when they no longer work?

Continuity of Beliefs and Values

The emergence of a busy ethic is no coincidence,It is, rather, a logical part of people's attempts tomanage a smooth transition from work to retire-rnent. Theorists of the life course have identifiedseveral conditions that ease an individual's tran-sitions from one status to another. For example,transitions are easier to the extent that the newposition has a well-defined role, or providesopportunities for attaining valued social goals, orwhen it entails a formal program of socialization(Burr, 1973; Rosow, 1974). Transitions are alsoeasier when beliefs are continuous between twopositions, that is, when action in the new positionis built upon or integrated with the existing val-ues of the person. Moral continuity is a benefitfor the individual who is in transition, and for thewider social community as well.

In the abstract, retirement ought to entail theunlearning of values and attitudes-in particular,the work ethic-so that these should be no obsta-cle to adaptation. Upon withdrawal from work,emotional investment in; and commitment to, thework ethic should by rights be extinguished infavor of accepting leisure as a morally desirablelifestyle. Along these lines, there is a commonrecommendation that older workers, beginningin their 50s, should be "educated for leisure"in preparation forretirement. For example, the1971 White House Conference on Aging recom-mended that "Society should adopt a policy ofpreparation for retirement, leisure, and educationfor life off the job ... to prepare persons to under-stand and benefit from the changes produced byretirement" (p. 53).

But the work ethic is not unlearned in someresocialization process. Rather,it is transformed.There are two devices of this transformationthat allow a moral continuity between work andretired life. One-the busy ethic-defends thedaily conduct of retired life. The other-anide-ology of pensions-legitimates retirees' claim toincome without the obligation to work. As to thelatter, a special restitutive rhetoric has evolvedthat characterizes pensions as entitlements for

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former productivity. Unlike others, such aswelfare recipients, who stand outside the produc-tive process, whose idleness incurs moral censure,and who are very grudgingly tendered financialsupport (Beck, 1967), the inoccupation of retireesis considered to have been earned by virtue ofhaving formerly been productive. This veteran-ship status (Nelson, 1982) justifies the receipt ofincome without work, preserves the self-respectof retirees, and keeps retirement consistent withthe dominant societal prestige system, whichrewards members primarily to the extent that theyare economically productive.

The Busy Ethic: Functions and Participants

Along with an ideology that defends the receipt ofincome without the obligation to work, there is anethic that defends life without work. This "busyethic" is at once a statementof value as well as anexpectation of retired people-shared by, retireesand nonretirees alike-that their lives should be 'active and earnest. (Retirees' actual levels of activ-ity are, as shall be explained, another matteraltogether; the emphasis here is on shared valuesabout the conduct of life.) The busy ethic is namedafter the common question put to people of retire-able age, "What will you do (or are you doing) tokeep yourself busy?" and their equally commonreports that "I have a lot to keep me busy" and"I'm as busy as ever," Expressions of the busyethic also have their pejorative opposites, forexample, "I'd rot if I just sat around." In namingthe busy ethic;. the connotation of busyness ismore one of involvement and engagement than ofmere bustle and hubbub.

The busy ethic serves several purposes: It legit-imates the leisure of retirement, it defends retiredpeople against judgments of obsolescence, it givesdefinition to [the] retirement role, and it "domes-ticates" retirement by adapting retired life toprevailing societal norms. Before discussing thesefunctions of the busy ethic, it is-important toemphasize that any normative feature of social life ..entails endorsement and management by multipleparties. There are three parties to the busy ethic.

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256 .:. IS RETIREMENT OBSOLETE?

First, of course, are the subjects of the busyethic-solder workers and retirees-who are par-ties to it by virtue of their status. They participatein the busy ethic to the degree that they subscribeto the desirability of an active, engaged lifestyle.When called upon to account for their lives asretirees, subjects of the busy ethic should professto be "doing things" in retirement or, if still work-ing, be planning to "do things:' Retirees can tes-tify to their level of involvement in blanket terms,asserting: I've got plenty to do, I'm busier thanwhen I was working. Or they can maintain inreserve a descriptive, mental list of activities (per-haps exaggerated or even fictitious) that can beoffered to illustrate a sufficient level of engage-ment. These engagements run heavily to mainte-nance activities (e.g., tasks around the house,shopping) and involvement with children andgrandchildren. Obviously, part-time jobs, volun-teering, or major life projects ('I've alwayswanted to learn how to play the piano") can beoffered as evidence of an active lifestyle. Lessserious leisure pursuits (hobbies, pastimes, social-izing) can also contribute to a picture of the busylife as long as such pursuits are characterizedas involving and time consuming. In honoring thebusy ethic, exactly what one does to keep busy issecondary to the fact that one purportedly is busy.

A second group of parties to the busy ethiccomprises the other participants-friends, rela-tives, coworkers-who talk to older workersand retirees about the conduct of retired life.Their role is primarily one of keeping conversa-tion about retirement continually focused on thetopic of activity, without necessarily upholdingideals of busyness. Conversation with retireesalso serves to assure these others that there is lifeafter work. Indeed, apart from money matters,conversation about retired life per se is chieflyconversation about what one does with it, howtime is filled. Inquiries about the retiree's lifestyle("So what are you doing with yourself?") maycome from sincere interest or may only be politeconversation. Inquiries, too, can be mean-spirited,condescending, or envious. Whatever the sourceor course of discussion, it nonetheless frequently

comes to assurances that, yes, it is good to keepbusy.

The third group can be called institutionalconservators of the busy ethic, and their role ismore clearly normative. These parties hold upimplicit and explicit models of what retired lifeshould be like, models that evince an importanceplaced on being active. and engaged. Prominentinstitutional conservators of the busy ethic arethe marketers of products and services to seniors,the gerontology profession, and the popular media.More shall be said about these later.

Returning to the purposes that the busy ethicserves, its primary function is to legitimate theleisure of retirement. Leisure without the even-tual obligation of working is an anomalousfeature of adulthood. Excepting the idle richand those incapable of holding a job, few adultsescape the obligation to work. Retirement andpension policies, however, are devised to excludeolder adults from the labor force. In addition, agebias operates to foreclose opportunities for theirfurther employment How can our value systemdefend this situation=-retirernent-c-when it iselsewhere engaged in conferring honor on peoplewho work and work hard? The answer lies in anethic that endorses leisure that is analogous towork. As noted above, leisure pursuits can rangefrom the serious to the self-indulgent. What legit-imates these as an authentic adult lifestyle is theircorrespondence with the form of working life,which is to be occupied by activities that areregarded as serious and engaging. The busy ethicrescues retirement from the stigma of retreat andaimlessness and defines it as a succession to newor renewed foci of engagement. It reconciles forretirees and their social others the adult obligationto work with a life of leisure. This is the natureof continuity in self-respect between the job andretirement (Atchley, ]971).

In an essay that anticipates some of the pre-sent argument, Miller (1965) took a stricter viewabout what justifies retirement leisure. Mereactivity is not meaningful enough; it must havethe added rationale of being infused with aspectsof work that are culturally esteemed. Activity

legitimates retirement if it is, for example,economically instrumental (profitable hobbies),or contributes to the general good (communityservice), or is potentially productive (education orskill development). Whether people in factrecog-riize a hierarchy of desirable, work-correlativeactivities at which retirees can be busy remains tobe determined. What Miller's essay and thepresent argument have in common, nonetheless,is the view that what validates retirement, in part,is activity that is analogous to work.

The busy ethic serves a second purpose for itssubjects, which is to symbolically defend retireesagainst aging. Based on the belief that vigorpreserves well-being, subscription to the norm ofbusyness can recast retirement. as "middle-agelike." Adherence to the busy ethic can be adefense-even to oneself-against possible judge-ments of obsolescence or senescence. To accentu-ate the contrast between the vital and senescentelder, there is an entire. vocabulary of pejorativereferences to rocking chairs and sitting and idle-ness. As an illustration, a recent piece in my localnewspaper about a job placement service forseniors quoted one of the program's participants,who said:."} am not working for income. I amworking for therapy, to keep busy. There is nothingthat will hurt an elderly person as much as just sit-ting alone all day long, doing nothing, thinkingabout nothing." It is appropriate to note here that,in scope, the busy ethic does not apply to allretirees. The busy life is more likely to be anexpectation on the conduct of the "young-old"retiree, or at least the retiree who has not beenmade frail by chronic illness.

A third purpose of the busy ethic is that itplaces a boundary on the retirement role and thuspermits some true leisure, Just as working adultscycle between time at work and time off, retireestoo can have "time off." Because the busy ethicjustifies some of one's time, the balance of one'stime needs no justification. For. example, if themorning was spent running errands or caring forgrandchildren, one can feel comfortable withnapping or a stretch of TV viewing in the after-noon. The existence of fulfillable expectations

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allows one to balance being active with taking iteasy--one can slip out of the retirement role, oneis allowed lime offstage. Being busy, like work-ing, "pays" for one's rest and relaxation.

The busy ethic serves a fourth function, andthis for the wider society by "domesticating"retirement to mainstream societal values. It couldbe otherwise. Why not an ethic of hedonism, non-conformity, and carefree self-indulgence as a log- .icaJ response to societal policies that define olderworkers as obsolescent and expendable? Free of .adult workaday constraints, retirees could becometrue dropouts thumbing their noses at convention.Or why not an ethic of repose, with retirees res-olutely unembarrassed about slowing down toenjoy leisure in very individual ways? Retirees dooften describe retirement as a time for sheer grat-ification. In response to open-ended questions onNormative Aging Study surveys about the primaryadvantages of retirement, men overwhelminglyemphasize: freedom to do as I wish, no moreschedules, now I can do what I want, just relax,enjoy life. Such sentiments, however, do not tendto serve drop-out or contemplative models ofretired life because retirees will go on to indicatethat their leisure is nonetheless responsibly busy.The busy ethic tames the potentially unfetteredpleasures of retirement to prevailing values aboutengagement that apply to adulthood. For nonre-tirees, this renders retirement as something intelli-gible and consistent with other stages of life.Additionally, the busy ethic, in holding that retireescan and should be participating in the world, prob-ably salves some concern about their having beenunfairly put on the shelf.

The active domestication of retirement is theprovince of the institutional conservators of thebusy ethic. The popular media are strenuousconservators. An article in my local newspaperlast year bore the headline, 'They've retired butstill keep busy," which was reprised only a fewmonths later in another headline, "He keeps busyin his retirement." Both articles assured thereader that these seniors were happily compen-sating for their withdrawal from work. It iscommon for "senior set" features to depict older

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258 .:. IS RETIREMENT OBSOLETE?

people in an upbeat fashion, though in alJfairness the genre of newspapers' lifestylesections generally portrays everybody as occu-pied by varied and wonderful activities regardlessof age. The popular media are also staunch pro-moters of aged exemplars of activity and achieve-ment-Grandma Moses, Pablo Casals, GeorgeBurns, and so on through such lists (WalJechinskyet aI., 1977). A current National Public Radioseries on aging and creativity bears the perceptivetitle: "I'm Too Busy to Talk Now: Conversationswith American Artists over Seventy."

Marketers, with the golf club as their chiefprop, have been instrumental in fostering the busyimage. A recent analysis of advertising in maga-zines designed specifically for older people foundthat the highest percentage of ads in these maga-zines concerned travel and more often than notportrayed older people in an active setting such asgolfing, bicycling, or swimming (Kvasnicka et al.,1982). Calhoun (1978) credited the ads andbrochures of the retirement home industry, inpar-ticular, with promoting an energetic image ofolder Americans. This industry built houses and,more importantly, built a market for those houses,which consisted of the dynamic retiree. While fewretirees ever live in retirement communities, themodel of such communities has been most influ-ential in the creation of an active, if shallowlycommercial, image of the elderly. One writer(Fitzgerald, 1983), visiting Sun City Center inFlorida ('The town too busy to retire"), reflected:

Possibly some people still imagine retirementcommunities as boarding houses with rock-ing chairs, but, thanks to Del Webb and a fewother pioneer developers, the nOlionof"active" retirement has become entirely famil-iar; indeed, since the sixties it has been theguiding principle of retirement-home buildersacross the country. Almost all developersnow advertise recreational facilities and printglossy brochures with photos of gray-hairedpeople playing golf, tennis, and shuffleboard.(p.74)

The visitor noted that residents talked a greatdeal about their schedules and activities. The vis-itor also noted how their emphasis on activitieswas an attempt to legitimate retirement and knitit to long-standing beliefs and values:

Sun Citians' insistence on busyness-and theslightly defensive tone of their town booster-ism-s-came, Ibegan to imagine, from the factthat their philosophies, and, presumably, the[conservative, work ethic] beliefs they hadgrown up with, did not really support them inthis enterprise of retirement. (p. 91)

The gerontological community has been animportant conservator of aspects of the busyethic. Cumming and Henry (1961) early onpointed out the nonscientific presuppositionsof mainstream gerontology'S "implicit theory" ofaging, which include the projection of middie-aged standards of instrumentality, activity, andusefulness into later life. This implicit, so-called"activity theory" of aging entailed the unabashedvalue judgment that "the older person who agesoptimally is the person who stays active and man-ages to resist the shrinkage of his social world"(Havighurst et al., 1968, p. 161). GubriumQ973)has noted the Calvinistic aura of this perspective:"Successful aging, as the activity theorists por-tray it, is a life style that is visibly 'busy' " (p. 7).Continuing this orientation over the last decade,gerontology's campaign against ageism has,according to Cole (I 983), promoted an alterna-tive image of older people as healthy, sexuallyactive, engaged, productive, and self-reliant.

Institutional conservators of the busy ethicare by no means monolithic in their efforts touphold ideals of busyness. Rather, in pursuing theirdiverse objectives they find it useful to highlightparticular images of retirement and later life thatcoalesce around the desirability of engagement.

Sources of Authority

The busy ethic is useful, .therefore, because itlegitimates leisure, it wards off disturbing

thoughts about aging, it permits retirees somerest and relaxation, and it adapts retirement toprevailing societal norms. These benefits to theparticipants of the busy ethic are functional onlyin an analytic sense. No one in daily life approvesof busy retirements because such approval is"functional," It is useful at this point to ask whypeople ultimately assent to the notion that it isgood to be busy.

The busy ethic has moral force because it par-ticipates in two great strong value complexes-ethics themselves-thai axiomatize it. One, ofcourse, is the work ethic, which holds that it isenobling to be exerting oneself in the world. Theother basis for the busy ethic's authority is the pro-found importance placed on good health and thestimulating, wholesome manner of living that isbelieved to ensure its maintenance. The mainte-nance of health is an ideal with a deep traditionthat has long carried moral as well as medical sig-nificance. Haley (1978), for example, has pointedout how Victorian thinkers promoted the tonicqualities of a robust and energetic lifestyle.The preservation of health ~as seen to be a dutybecause the .well-knit body reflected a well-·formed mind, and the harmony of mind and bodysignified spiritual health and the reach for higherhuman excellence. III, unkempt, and indolent con-ditions, by contrast, indicated probable moral fail-ure. Times change, but current. fashions in healthmaintenance still imply that a fit and strenuous lifewill have medical benefits and testify as well

. to the quality of one's will and character. Thus,admonitions to older people that they "keep busy"and "keep going" are authoritative because theyadvocate an accepted therapy for body and soul.

Correspondence With Behavior

One crucial issue is the correspondence betweenthe busy ethic and actual behavior. It is importantto mention that not all self-reports about busyretirements are conscious presentations of con-formity to a busy ethic. There are retirees who byany reckoning are very active. But in the more

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general case, if people believe it is important tokeep busy, should they not therefore be busy bysome standard or another?

This [essay's] argument in favor of the busyethic has implied that belief is not necessarilybehavior. On one hand, the busy ethic may-asany ethic should-.-motivate retirees to use theirtime in constructive or involving pursuits. It mayget them out of the unhealthful rocking chair oraway from the can-of-beer-in-front-of-the-TY. Onthe other hand. the busy ethic can motivate peopleto interpret their style of life as conforming toideals about activity. An individual can take a dis-parate, even limited, set of activities and spin themtogether into a representation of a very busy life. Itwould be difficult to contradict such a manner ofthinking on empirical grounds; "engagement" is asubjective quality of time use that simple counts ofactivities or classifications of their relative serious-ness or instrumentality are not likely to measure.Indeed, gerontologists should be wary about theextentto which the busy ethic may shape people'sresponses on surveys about their leisure, frequencyof activities, and experience in retirement.

In posing the question, "How busy do retireeshave to be under such a set of values?" the answeris they don't objectively have to be very busy ataIL Just as with the work ethic, which has been anabstract set of ideals for some time (Rodgers,1978), it is not the actual pace of activity but thepreoccupation with activity and the affirmation ofits desirability that matters. After all, all of us arenot always honest, but we would all agree thathonesty is the best policy. The busy ethic, likethe work ethic and other commonplace values,should be evaluated Jess for its implied link withactual behavior than for its ability to badger orcomfort the conscience. The busy ethic, at bot-tom, is self-validating: Because it is important tobe busy, people will say they are busy.

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Conclusion

The busy ethic is an idea that people have aboutthe appropriate quality of a retired lifestyle. It

260 .:. IS RETIREMENT OBSOLETE?

solves the problem of moral continuity: how tointegrate existing beliefs and values about workinto a new status that constitutes a withdrawalfrom work. The postulation of a busy ethic is anattempt to examine sociologically people's judg-ments of value and obligation regarding the con-duct of daily life-their expectations of eachother and of themselves.

To be sure, there are other superseding expec-tations on the conduct of retirees. Writing aboutthe duties of a possible retirement role, Atchley(1976) has noted that a stability of behavior isexpected, as well as self-reliance and indepen-dence in managing one's affairs. Such normativepreferences are fairly vague and open-ended.Rosow (1974) surveyed the prospects for social-ization to later life, in which the retirement roleis nested, and found that behavioral prescriptionsfor older people are open and flexible, and normsare limited, weak, and ambiguous. Even admoni-tions to be active carry virtually no guidanceabout the preferred content of such activity.Perhaps this is just as well. Streib and Schneider(1971), summarizing findings from the CornellStudy of Occupational Retirement, pointed outthat the vagueness of retirees' role expectationsmay protect retirees from demands that theymight be disinclined to fulfill or from standardsthat diminished health and financial resourcesmight not allow them to meet.

The busy ethic, too, comprises vague expec-tations on behavior. It is a modest sort ofprescription-less a spur to conformity and morea way to comfortably knit a new circumstance tolong-held values. Social disapproval is its onlysanction. Not all retirees assent to this image ofretirement, nor do they need to. Judging by the

. Ubiquity of the idea, however, subscribers to thebusy ethic are probably in the majority; one cannottalk to retirees for very long without hearing therhetoric of busyness. The busy ethic also legiti-mates the daily conduct of retired life in a lowerkey than has been claimed by some gerontologists,who propose that work substitutes and instrumen-tal activity are essential to indemnify retirement.While some retirees do need to work at retirement

to psychologically recoup the social utility thatworking supplied (Hooker & Ventis, 1984), formost it is enough to participate in a rather abstractesteem for an active lifestyle and to represent theirown retirement as busy in some way.

To conclude, the busy ethic, as an idealizationand expectation of retired life, illustrates howretirement is socially managed, not just politicallyand economically but also morally-by means ofeveryday talk and conversation as well as by moreformal institutions. Drawing its authority from thework ethic and from a traditional faith in the ther-apeutic value of activity, the busy ethic counsels ahabit of engagement that is continuous with gen-eral cultural prescriptions for adulthood. It legiti-mates the leisure of retirement, it defends retiredpeople against judgments of senescence, and itgives definition to the retirement role. In all, thebusy ethic helps individuals adapt to retirement,and it in turn adapts retirement to prevailing soci-etal norms.

References

Atchley, R. C. (l97l). Retirementand leisure participa-tion: Continuity or crisis? The Gerontologist, II, --13-17.

Atchley, R. C. (1976). The sociology of retirement.New York: Halsted.

Beck, B. (1967). Welfare as a moral category. SocialProblems, 14, 258-277.

Bosse, R., Ekerdt, D. J .• & Silbert, J. E. (l984). TheVeteransAdministration Normative Aging Study,In S. A. Mednick, M. Harway, & K. M. Finello(Eds.), Handbook of longitudinal research. Vol.2,Teenage and adult cohorts. New York: Praeger.

Burr, W. R. (1973). Theory construction and the soci-ology of the family. New York: John Wiley.

Calhoun, R. B. (1978). In search of the new old:Redefining old age in America, 1945-1970.New York: Elsevier,

Cole, T. R. (1983). The "enlightened" view of aging:Victorian morality in a new key. Hastings CenterReport, 13, 34-40.

Cumming,E., & Henry,W.R (1961).Growing old: Theprocess of disengagement. New York:Basic Books.

Fitzgerald, F. (1983, April 25). Interlude (Sun CityCenter). New Yorker, pp. 54-109.

Gubrium, 1. F. (1973). The myth of the golden years: Asocioenvironmental theory of aging. Springfield,IL: Charles C Thomas.

Haley, B. (1978). The healthy body and Victorianculture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.

Hanlon, M. D. (1983). Age and the commitment towork. Flushing, NY: Queens College, CityUniversity of New York, Department of UrbanStudies (ERIC Document Reproduction ServiceNo. ED 243 003).

Havighurst, R. J., Neugarten, B. L, & Tobin, S. S.(1968). Disengagement and patterns of aging. InB. L Neugarten (Ed.), Middle age and aging: Areader in social psychology. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press.

Hooker, K., & Ventis, D. G. (1984). Work ethic, dailyactivities, and retirement satisfaction. Journal ofGerontology, 39, 478-484.

Keniston, K. (1974). Youth and its ideology. InS. Arieti (Ed.), American handbook of psychiatry.VoL 1. The foundations of psychiatry. 2nd ed.New York: Basic Books.

Kvasnicka, B., Beymer, B., & Perloff, R. M. (1982).Portrayals of the elderly in magazine advertise-ments. Journalism Quarterly; 59, 656-658.

Lewis, L S. (1982). Working at leisure. Society, 19(July/August), 27-32.

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Macintyre, A. (198 I). After virtue: A study in moral theory.Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Miller, S. 1. (1965). The social dilemma of the agingleisure participant. In A. M. Rose & W. Peterson(Eds.), Older people and their social worlds.Philadelphia: E A. Davis.

Nelson, D. W. (1982). Alternate images of old age asthe bases for policy. In B. LNeugarten (Ed.), Ageor need? Public policies for older people. BeverlyHills, CA: Sage.

Rodgers, D. T. (978). The work ethic in industrialAmerica: 1850-1920. Chicago: University ofChicago Press.

Rosow, I. (974). Socialization to old age. Berkeley:University of California Press.

Streib, G. E;. & Schneider, C. J. (1971). Retirementin American society: Impact and process. Ithaca,NY: Cornell University Press.

Wallechinsky, D., Wallace, I., & Wallace, A. (1977).The People's Almanac presents the book of lists.New York: William Morrow.

White House Conference on Aging. (1971). Towarda national policy on aging: Proceedings of the1971 White House Conference on Aging. Vol. II.Washington, DC: Ll.S. Government Printing Office.

Yankelovich, D., & Irnmerwhar, J. (1984). Putting thework ethic to work. Society. 21 (January/February),58-76.

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Reading 28

MOVING TOWARD A CREATIVE RETIREMENT

RONALD J. MANHEIMER

Gale Arneson's voice communicated an urgencythat convinced me I needed to make time for theout-of-town visitors that very ..day. "We're trying

to figure out how to have a creative retirement,"she announced over the phone, "and you'resupposed to be the place to find out."

Source: "Moving Toward a Creative Retirement" by Ronald 1. Manheimer is reprinted ;"'ith permission from Where 10 Retire,Fall 2000. Tel: 713-974-6903, www.WhereToRetire.com