Overview

Retirement is defined as the termination of gainful work that is, of activities one of whose aims is that of obtaining wealth, profit or other social rewards. With this definition, Dr Shenk proceeds with her study of retirement and its effects on a specific ethnic community within the United States, the Lebanese-Americans. While traditional sociocultural attitudes toward aging and the elderly are positive and sympathetic among Lebanese, these attitudes are not necessarily the views of the larger, non-ethnic American population - a situation already setting up contraries in a delicate area. The Lebanese-American, for example, is unhappy with the income social Security payments provide upon retirement in the US: the money is not adequate to support the quality of life these people had expected. For analytic purposes, this study is divided into four phases: (1) preparation and anticipation; (2) the actual moment of withdrawal from the active labour force; (3) initial adjustment to the new way of life; and (4) the patterned, established retirement itself. An important element in all of this is the changing patterns within the host community - the US - where retirement does not necessarily mean the end of useful activities, that the new retiree may very well elect to continue in some active, even gainful activity. Leisure, care of the elderly, mobility, and aging and retirement of women are also discussed - all of this supported by a careful description of the Lebanese in history and as emigrants to America.

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