Retirement as a Discrete Life-Stage of Farming Men and Women's Biography?

Abstract

Retirement generally marks the end of working life and the start of a new life-stage, providing the potential for new contents and opportunities, while requiring adaptation of existing roles. Retired Swiss farming men and women usually continue working and living on the farm, but their roles change. Drawing on conceptual approaches from gerontology research, we first aim to comprehend how farming men and women experience and understand retirement by describing major aspects of adaptation during their transition to retirement. Second, we appraise the relevance of the retirement concept for the farming population. Qualitative-empirical evidence shows that retired farming men and women continue to devote time and energy to the farm for the sake of farm continuity and to maintain the farmers' work ethic, while transferring financial and managerial responsibility. Poor health and the inability to contribute physically to the family farm appear as major threats for ‘ageing’ farmers.