SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF RETIREMENT AND RETIREMENT PLANNING AMONG INFORMAL SECTOR WORKERS IN GHANA: A CASE STUDY IN ASHANTI REGION

ABSTRACT With the changing nature of family systems in Ghana, majority of informal sector workers risk suffering poverty and poor well-being in their old age. It is therefore imperative that these workers actively plan for their life after retirement. This study examined social representations of retirement and retirement planning among informal sector workers in urban and rural Ghana. Simultaneous qualitative and quantitative mixed method design was used to gather data. The qualitative component used 4 focus group discussions, 2 each in urban and rural areas with a total of 36 participants. The quantitative component used survey method with 215 respondents. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data and multiple linear regression was used to analyse the quantitative data. The data suggested that social representations of retirement and retirement planning were complex and drawn, simultaneously, from five different stocks of knowledge in body-self, common sense, scientific, cultural and religious systems of knowledge. Formal policy notions of mandatory retirement were unfamiliar concept among participants. Nevertheless, participants had the building blocks of retirement planning within their socio-cultural context which provides a good opportunity for anchoring formal alternative systems of retirement planning into their traditional practices. Findings are discussed in relation to relevant literature. The practical and theoretical implications of the findings are also discussed as well as limitations and recommendations for future research