Doctoral Dissertation Research: Retirement Practices, Resource Management, and Financial Planning

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This doctoral dissertation research project scientifically explores how resource and financial planning strategies are managed among aging populations. Focusing on an age-restricted retirement community, the researcher examines what experiences influence retirement behavior in older age, as well as how economic and ecological resources are understood and utilized among retirees. This work will shed light on the ways American retirement is shaping the future of the U.S. Southwest; what obstacles are inhibiting the possibility of retirement among future generations; and what influence the current demographic of retirees has in shaping these changes. A key impact of this project will be to expand academic and public discussions on aging by linking choices about and experiences of retirement with financial planning and life histories. Further, it will focus on the way population growth impacts resource planning and will increase public knowledge about the environmental resources in this region. In addition to training a graduate student in methods of scientific data collection and analysis, it will also provide valuable material for governmental and nongovernmental professionals working in the fields of aging policy, retirement planning, and urban development. The researcher will shadow retirees, conduct media and archival research, and conduct in-depth interviews and life histories in order to understand how retirement is understood or experienced by older Americans, estate planners, municipal water officials, and relatives of retirees. The researcher has several specific goals. She intends to answer the following questions: What can retirement practices today illuminate about the American Dream, both how it is understood and the way it plays out locally in the West? How do retirement practices reveal internal differentiation among social groups? And how does the expansion of retirement communities in the American West shape present and future economic and ecological conditions and infrastructures? By answering these questions, the researcher will contribute to a greater understanding of resource management, as well as to the way heterogeneous groups build new forms of sociality. She proposes to combine ethnographic approaches with a robust historical framework in order to provide multi-dimensional insights into eldercare, finance, and the environment.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.