Trajectories of depression in different groups of retirees

The pattern of change in depression is based upon variables present at the time of retirement. Females have been found to have higher scores than males on some mental health outcomes but lower scores on others. Better health ratings have been found to be predictive of increased positive outcomes and decreased negative outcomes. Level of education has been found to be predictive of decreased negative mental health outcomes in retirement. Married individuals generally adjust better to retirement life than other individuals. Higher levels of income and greater job prestige are related to better outcomes in retirement and individuals. Results from a cluster analysis in this study identified three groupings of retirees. The first group consisted of both males and females working in managerial fields of work. The second group consisted largely of married men working in labor fields of work. The third group consisted of poor widows. These groups were found to be significantly different on a number of measures. A fairly strong linear component was found in depression scores over time for the sample as a whole, although this component did not quite achieve statistical significance (p = .067). The quadratic component was found to not be statistically significant (p = .464). The results changed after including the cluster membership in a growth curve model. The linear component was found to not be statistically significant for both the difference between the male laborer and manager groups (p = .462) and the poor widow and manager groups (p = .132). When a quadratic component was added to the growth curve model, the significance of the two linear components increased. Although the difference between the male laborer and manager groups did not reach statistical significance (p = .097), the difference between the poor widow and manager groups did become statistical significance (p = .013). For the non-linear component, the difference between the male laborer and manager groups did not reach statistical significance (p = .132) whereas the difference between the poor widow and manager groups did reach statistical significance (p = .034)