Volume 25, Issue 2 (2026) Fall * Special Issue * Retirement

Editor’s Note: Special Issue on Retirement

Retirement is often discussed as though it represents a single moment: the end of employment and the beginning of a new stage of life. Yet, retirement is far more complex. It is a developmental transition shaped by identity, relationships, health and wellness, financial and structural conditions, culture, meaning, and an individual’s experiences across the lifespan. For some, retirement represents freedom, possibility, and renewed purpose. For others, it may bring grief, uncertainty, identity disruption, financial strain, or changes in social connection. For many, it encompasses several of these experiences at once.

It is with this complexity in mind that I am pleased to introduce the Fall 2026 Special Issue of Adultspan Journal, focused on Retirement. This issue brings together research, conceptual scholarship, practitioner-focused work, and perspectives to examine retirement not simply as the conclusion of a career, but as a significant psychosocial and developmental transition.

The articles in this issue approach retirement from several important vantage points. Yilmaz and Filiz provide a systematic review of psychosocial interventions designed to promote well-being among retired adults, offering an important foundation for understanding how we can support individuals during this stage of life. Tiggs Angieri, Cables, and Abernathy examine retirement through the lens of intersectional identities and aging, while Jones and colleagues use a social determinants of mental health framework to highlight how structural and contextual conditions shape retirement experiences. Robinson and Lee extend the conversation to wellness and suicide risk, providing practical considerations for counselors working with older adults.

The perspective articles bring lived experience to the forefront. Dollarhide explores the often-overlooked experience of retirement grief. Cofield and Rakes center a Black man’s narrative of retirement, survival, and protecting his peace, while Sami examines the structural and intersectional factors influencing Black men’s experiences of full retirement. Bailey closes an important gap in traditional conversations about retirement by examining career reinvention among women at midlife and beyond.

Although these articles approach retirement differently, together they reinforce a central message: there is no single retirement experience. Retirement can involve loss and liberation, vulnerability and wellness, endings and reinvention. Its meaning is shaped by race, gender, social class, health, relationships, work histories, access to resources, and whether and how an individual is able to choose when work ends.

This special issue reflects what Adultspan Journal seeks to contribute to the counseling profession: a deeper understanding of development across adulthood that recognizes both the individual and the contexts in which development occurs. I am grateful to the authors who contributed their scholarship, practice expertise, and lived experiences, as well as to the reviewers and editorial team who helped bring this special issue together.

I hope this collection encourages counselors, counselor educators, researchers, and students to think more expansively about retirement and to recognize it as an important developmental transition deserving greater attention within our profession.

Kaprea F. Johnson, Ph.D. Editor-in-Chief Adultspan Journal