Social Contact Patterns and Satisfaction with Retirement of Women in Dual-Career/Earner Families

The authors conducted an empirical study in 1990 of 611 mature women in dual-career/earner families who are retired from a work position in the field of education. We test twelve hypotheses that relate frequency of contact, kind of social contact and perceived gap between desired and frequency of actual social contact to satisfaction with women's timing of retirement and leisure. Nine of the twelve hypotheses were confirmed. Women who have more frequent and a greater variety of social contact are more satisfied with the timing of their retirement and their leisure than those who have less contact. The wider the gap between desired and actual frequency contact with specific groups the less satisfied will women be with their leisure experience, their amount of leisure time, and their timing of retirement.