I retired and I feel useless

An example: Harold and the first year without a title

Watch what the days look like once the job is gone, which of Harold's feelings come in the first weeks and which arrive later, and what changes when he spends a morning among other people.

Harold is 66 and spent thirty-one years as a school principal. He retired in June with a party, a watch and a plan to fix the porch, learn the guitar and travel. His wife still works part-time.

The first Monday He wakes at six and dresses, then stands in the kitchen with nowhere to be. The porch is fixed by the end of July. He tells his wife he has never felt so rested, and means it.

October At a neighbor's barbecue a man asks what he does. “I was a principal,” Harold says, and hears the past tense. The conversation moves on within a minute. He stays in the yard with a drink for the rest of the evening.

The winter Days run together. He watches the news from nine, naps, walks to the mailbox. His wife notices he snaps at small things and that he says “I'm fine” more often. He hasn't called his old deputy in four months, and he doesn't know why.

The food bank In February a former colleague asks him to cover a Saturday shift at the food bank. Harold sorts cans for three hours with two strangers and a teenager who needs to be shown how the system works. He is tired and oddly light afterward. He tells his wife about the teenager at dinner.

The first weeks felt fine and the flatness arrived later, once the plan was used up. The detail that moved was the Saturday shift: other people, a task that was needed, and being the one who knew how.

The thin feeling at the barbecue and the past tense fit the page on persona: a role used to answer who a person is. The tight days fit latent deprivation, the idea that work gave structure, company and a shared aim beyond pay. The lift at the food bank points to self-determination theory, where feeling capable, choosing freely and belonging each matter. The research on this page also suggests the groups Harold belongs to may matter, since work often supplies many at once and retirement can remove them together.

A different story would point elsewhere. If Harold's low had begun before he retired, or came with poor sleep, no appetite and loss of interest in everything, including the food bank, that is closer to what this site's pages on depression describe than to anything about retirement. If he missed the job mainly as a place to be needed and felt fine everywhere else, the lack of a role may be the whole story. A new illness, a money worry or a change in medication can also lower mood and drive. One winter can't settle which. Whether the flatness lifts when his days gain shape, and where it doesn't, says more.

What the research shows

3 studies, each with what it doesn’t show

Researchers don't study the feeling of uselessness in retirement as such. The studies below are about how retirees' well-being changes, for whom, and what seems to go with doing better or worse.

Retirees don't all change in the same way: in US and German samples, researchers found three different paths of well-being, and people with more resources changed less. In an English cohort, losing social group memberships after retirement went with lower quality of life and higher risk of death, though the study can't show cause. None of the studies measured feeling useless itself.

Retirees followed over time split into groups with different paths, not one common pattern

In 2007, Mo Wang used longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Survey, two samples of 994 and 1,066 US retirees, to look at how psychological well-being changes through retirement. Using growth mixture modeling, he found three different patterns of change in well-being among the retirees.

He then profiled the subgroups behind each pattern, using individual variables such as whether the person took a bridge job and contextual variables such as whether the spouse was working. The conclusion was that retirees don't follow one uniform adjustment pattern, which may explain why earlier studies disagreed about whether retirement helps or harms.

Doesn’t show Only the abstract was read here, so the share of retirees in each group isn't given. The data are from US retirees in a long-running survey, and the measure was overall well-being, so a feeling of being useless or of a lost role wasn't studied on its own. The groups describe averages, and a person can't be placed in one from a single winter.

Mo Wang, Profiling retirees in the retirement transition and adjustment process: Examining the longitudinal change patterns of retirees' psychological well-being, Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(2), 455–474, 2007.

In 1,456 German retirees, life satisfaction took three different paths, and people with more resources changed less

In 2007, Martin Pinquart and Ines Schindler studied changes in life satisfaction in 1,456 German retirees using latent growth mixture modeling. They found three groups. In the first, satisfaction fell at retirement and then stayed stable or rose. In the second, satisfaction rose sharply at retirement and declined overall afterward. In the third, satisfaction showed a very small, temporary rise.

The groups differed by retirement age, gender, socioeconomic status, marital status, health, unemployment before retiring and region. The authors concluded that retirement is not a uniform transition, and that people with more resources are less likely to experience retirement-related change in satisfaction.

Doesn’t show The study covers Germany, and the abstract doesn't say which group was largest. It measured life satisfaction, which isn't the same as feeling useless or missing a role. The group differences are correlations, so they can't show that, say, health causes a particular path.

Martin Pinquart and Ines Schindler, Changes of life satisfaction in the transition to retirement: A latent-class approach, Psychology and Aging, 22(3), 442–455, 2007.

Retirees who kept more group memberships had lower risk of death and better quality of life six years on

In 2016, Niklas Steffens, Tegan Cruwys, Catherine Haslam, Jolanda Jetten and Alexander Haslam followed 424 adults in England who went through the transition to retirement, alongside a matched group of 424 who did not retire. They counted the number of social groups people belonged to before and after retiring and followed quality of life and death over six years.

Among retirees with two group memberships before retiring, those who kept both had a 2% risk of death in six years, those who lost one had 5% and those who lost both had 12%. For each membership lost in the first year, quality of life six years later was about 10% lower. The results held when age, gender, relationship status and socioeconomic status were controlled, and did not appear in the matched group who had not retired.

Doesn’t show The study is observational, so it can't show that losing groups causes worse outcomes. Healthier or more resilient people may be better at keeping groups. It measured group memberships and quality of life, and doesn't measure feeling useless, and the risks are for a nationally representative English cohort of older adults.

Niklas K. Steffens, Tegan Cruwys, Catherine Haslam, Jolanda Jetten and S. Alexander Haslam, Social group memberships in retirement are associated with reduced risk of premature death: evidence from a longitudinal cohort study, BMJ Open, 6(2), e010164, 2016.

Try it: a week of days

A short exercise

Look back over the last seven days and write a few lines. Keep the notes somewhere only you can open.

• The day I felt most useful, and who was there
• The day I felt least useful, and what the hours were like
• The groups or regular gatherings I belonged to a year ago, and which are still going
• What I find myself doing at the hour I used to leave for work

The first and second lines may show whether the feeling follows other people, a task or being needed. The third compares the group memberships the research on this page counts. The fourth may show how much of the day was shaped by the old job's clock.

Questions people ask

Why do I feel useless since I retired?

Several patterns could explain it. Work often supplies structure, company, a shared aim and a title along with pay, and retirement can remove all of them at once. Research suggests retirees differ widely: Mo Wang found three different paths of well-being among US retirees, and Martin Pinquart and Ines Schindler found three paths in German retirees. In a study of English retirees, those who lost group memberships after retiring had lower quality of life six years later. Which of these applies to one person depends on what the job carried and what has replaced it.

Is it normal to feel lost after retiring?

It is common enough that researchers have mapped it. In the German study above, satisfaction fell at retirement for one group, rose for another, and barely moved for a third. The authors found that people with more resources were less likely to experience retirement-related change. A low that lasts weeks and reaches into sleep, appetite and interest is something a doctor can look at.

Is retirement depression real?

Depression can appear at any point in life, including after retiring, and a major change in routine and role may be one of the things that make it more likely. The studies on this page measured well-being and life satisfaction and not depression, so they can't say how often it happens. Only a doctor can say whether a low mood is depression, and this page doesn't label anyone.

How do you find purpose after retirement?

The research on this page describes what goes with doing better rather than giving steps. In the English study, keeping more social group memberships after retirement went with better quality of life and lower risk of death. In the US study, retirees' paths differed by factors such as bridge jobs and whether a spouse was still working. These are associations, and they say little about any one person's purpose.

My husband retired and just sits in front of the TV. Is that depression?

It might be and it might not. Sitting and watching television can be rest, a habit, a way of filling hours that have lost their shape, or a sign of low mood. Irritability, more drinking, a firm “I'm fine” and a change that dates from the last day of work are things to notice, and the page on covert depression describes them. Whether it is depression is for a doctor to say.