Retirement Adjustment Predictors—A Systematic Review

Human beings are living longer than ever. Among other consequences, this demographic trend increased retirement duration, what makes important to understand what factors contribute to a better life in retirement. In order to explore these factors and add to previous investigations, this study aimed to perform a systematic literature review concerning adjustment to retirement. For that, a total of 11 descriptors were surveyed in 7 electronic databases seeking empirical studies addressing retirees, published between 1995 and 2014, and written either in English, Portuguese, or Spanish. A total of 3,255 records were identified, and resulted in a final sample of 115 articles after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. The adjustment predictors were classified into 26 categories. Factors with larger empirical evidence on the benefits to adjustment are: physical health, finances, psychological health and personality-related attributes, leisure, voluntary retirement, and social integration. It is expected that these results allow comparing different predictors, fostering research on scarcely studied but promising predictors, and informing the development of retirement interventions.