RETIREMENT ANXIETY AND JOB PERFORMANCE TOWARDS SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

1.1 Introduction

Retirement is an inevitable stage in the work life of every employee, which seems to suddenly catch up with many retirees unprepared and unacceptable. Anyanwu (2008) opined that many teachers in Nigeria present false affidavits and declaration of age in an attempt to perpetuate their stay in teaching despite clear evidence that they have passed statutory age which is sixty years or thirty-five years of service. The effects of retirement on the lives of the retirees cannot be over-emphasized. According to Kim and Meon (2002), retirement as the total withdrawal of a worker’s services from an organization after putting in some specific number of years or having attained the specified retirement age. Retirement therefore, is the total withdrawal of a worker from active service (Kim and Meon, 2002).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

Retirement which can be described as the termination of a working career, it is as sure as death and it may come in various forms. It may come suddenly as retrenchment or lay-off to workers whose employers decide to dispense with their services. It may come in form of a long notice. For example, government civil service reform policy stipulates that except for judges and university professors, all other workers should be prepared to go on compulsory retirement at age 60 or after 35 years of service whichever comes earlier. Industrial firms may suddenly retrench their workers for redundancy, low productivity or lack of raw materials.

Retirement is a human experience that comes to every worker but could be traumatic to many unprepared ones. The traumatic implications border on the retirees’ wellbeing. It has been observed by the researchers that many teachers in Nigeria particularly in Imo state are faced with challenges like boredom, depression, low self- esteem, diminished psychological and economic status due to redundancy or poor coping strategies. Some primary school teachers in Imo state experience difficulty fallen back on a new life style after retirement especially those who did not prepare for the transition period.

To most workers, the mere thought of retirement is dreadful, frightening and depressing because it may connote misery, loss of status and prestige, poverty, drastic reduction in income, boredom, loneliness, inactivity or even premature death. With this attitudes, workers who are approaching retiring age, who have not prepare for it, may not do their jobs as effectively as they could.

Retirement normally should be a period in the life of a worker to rest from the onerous tasks of previous years. It should be a period to sit back and enjoy the fruit of past labour. To ensure this, the guidance counsellor is called upon to educate adults on precautionary measures to be taken to make retirement a joy and not a misery. Anything that has a beginning most have an end and retirement of a worker is no exception. The time to start to prepare for retirement should be from the first day of employment (Adeleke, 2003).

Retirement is a period workers cease to be actively engaged in daily work or job activities. It is a time of rest and planning for successful retired life. Regrettably, many workers today do not prepare or plan for their retirement. These workers do not put necessary things in place towards planning for their compulsory retirement after active work life (Uzozie, 2004).

Bam (2003) stated that retirement means a loss of status and prestige, loss of established comfortable routine, loss of old social contacts and particularly loss of respect from others and self-respect. Cavan (2004) reported that at the point of compulsory retirement, the main means of carrying out the special roles disappears. The man is lawyer without a case, a book keeper without books, a teacher without pupils, and a mechanic without tools.

In Nigeria, as workers advance towards retirement, they go through both positive and negative emotions. Nsirimobi and Ajuwede (2005), stated that pre-retired workers in Nigeria perceived retirement as a punitive outcome, which must be avoided; and that they become shivery at the approach of retirement. This underpins pre-retirement nervousness. Some researchers appear in the literature to have worked on pre-retirement anxiety of workers as they approached retirement, for instance, Clifford, Ogbebor, and Enakpoya (2010) as well as Akpochafo (2005), or their pre-retirement guidance, for instance, Olatomide and Akomolafe (2012), including Eyitayo, Lucy, and Obadofin (2008). Interestingly, however, to the best knowledge of these researchers, none of these studies delved into development and validation of anxiety scale for Nigerian workers, especially among the secondary school teachers.

Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Retirement Anxiety and Job Performance towards Secondary School Teachers.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that lack of planning in life tends to make people to become imbalance psychologically, socially and in most cases, economically. For instance, many civil servants today, do not plan and put things in place in anticipation of their retirement. Most civil servants during their working days, behave as if there will not be a time to stay away from active service. Their orientation is to live freely and enjoy whatever they have. They do not have the perception to save for the rainy day. They fail to invest their money in money yielding ventures and most fail to train their children. Some are carried away with pressures of office such as free cars, houses and others to plan for their retirement. There have been cases of poor health leading to sudden death of the retired person. If this trend is not checkmated, there is need to professional assist potential retirees to avoid fear on retirement.

This therefore, gave rise to the investigation into the effect of fear of Retirement Anxiety and Job Performance towards Secondary School Teachers in Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to investigate the Retirement Anxiety and Job Performance towards Secondary School Teachers in Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To investigate whether there is relationship between planned and unplanned retirement of teachers in secondary schools;
2. To find out whether there is difference between the perception of male and female teachers towards retirement;
3. To examine whether lack of planning influences teachers’ retirement;
4. To assess the difference between retirement anxiety of urban and rural secondary school teachers; and
5. To determine the relationship between job satisfaction and retirement anxiety among secondary school teachers.

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Is any relationship between planned and unplanned retirement of teachers in secondary schools?
• Is there any significant difference between the perception of male and female teachers towards retirement?
• Does lack of planning influences teachers’ retirement?
• What is the difference between retirement anxiety of urban and rural secondary school teachers?
• What is the relationship between job satisfaction and retirement anxiety among secondary school teachers?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: There is no significant relationship between planned and unplanned retirement of teachers in secondary schools
• H1: There is a significant relationship between planned and unplanned retirement of teachers in secondary schools

Hypothesis Two

• H0: There is no significant difference between retirement anxiety of urban and rural secondary school teachers
• H1: There is a significant difference between retirement anxiety of urban and rural secondary school teachers

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1.7 Significance of Study

This study will be beneficial to the following:

1. This study will help those who are about to go on retirement to make proper preparations for their retirement. It will also enable them to understand that working as a civil servant does not last forever and therefore, they would be expected to stop work either as a result of old age or attainment of work period as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Therefore, this work will help workers to make adequate preparation in terms of savings, setting an apartment or a home for themselves, investing in stocks or other profit-oriented businesses so as to be happy when they are retired.

1. Employers such as school authority would benefit from this study, because the content and recommendations of this study would enable them to have immense information on the perceived effect of fear on retirement and job performance. With this study, employers at all levels of our educational system would be enlightened on what it takes for workers to plan well for the rainy day in retirement.
2. The government will no doubt, have good policies regarding the retirement of workers, especially the teachers who are the core educators of the nation’s children and even adults. Government, especially the Ministry of Education, will find this study, especially its recommendations very relevant as it will help the employers of the teachers to formulate policies and create good environment that will enable teachers to plan well and retire comfortably without any recourse to fear of the unknown.
3. Counsellors would also benefit from the findings and recommendations of this study because, they would use the recommendations to counsel those who are afraid of retirement, especially teachers who fear and have perceived anxiety due to retirement.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Retirement Anxiety and Job Performance towards Secondary School Teachers in Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this establishment to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

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1.10 Definition of Terms

The following terms were defined in this study:

Retirement: The period at which one stops active participation in a paid employment voluntarily and involuntarily.

Retirement Benefit: This refers to profit; advantage; good effect, money provided by government as a right especially, in sickness or unemployment; an event, especially, a theatrical performance to raise money for some person or special purpose. Money or reward paid to a worker as a right by the government or the employer.

Fear of Job Performance: This is a term which refers to anxiety and pressure on an individual’s job performance in any organisation or institution.