The Environment of Active Ageing: The Experience of Strategizing and Accomplishing Life After Retirement

Retirement is an important period in a human life connected with a change in life priorities, a shift of one’s focus of attention due to retirement from professional activity and adaptation to new social reality (a change in social roles, social status, models of behavior). The objective of this study was to analyze the experience of senior citizens of Moscow in terms of planning and accomplishing their lives after retirement, as well as evaluating their involvement in the environment of active ageing along 6 dimensions: work, education, hobby, healthy lifestyle, family, community service. To achieve this, a study has been conducted involving senior citizens of Moscow. The sample comprised 538 respondents. The method was a street interview conducted in 12 administrative districts of Moscow. The results of the study include the following: 1) Moscow’s senior citizens have an underdeveloped skill of planning their own lives after retirement; 2) the dominant idea in their judgements about their future after retirement is aspiration to set up their local life space: either physical (home, summer cottage, garden), or social (communication with valuable people); 3) despite being actively engaged in the practices of active ageing connected with professional activities, hobby, sport or healthy lifestyle, senior citizens of Moscow are neither very much interested nor involved in social activities such as volunteering or other types of community service; 4) gender differences in attitudes to active pastime are highlighted: female pensioners demonstrate a high interest in communication, learning, creativity, self-development and are more involved in these activities; male pensioners are more inclined to repair and construction.