Retirees and their information needs: A survey

Abstract

Retirement is said to be a follow-up of industrialization of the 19^th century European world. It is regarded as an aspect of social experiences in modern employment society with its patterns differing from one country to another. The need for increased attention to the roles fulfilled by retirees and their new social status necessitated the study of their information needs. This study investigated the information needs of retirees using a survey design. Five objectives were set for the study and questionnaire was used to elicit information from respondents. Findings show that 77.8% were male while 22.2% were female. Most respondents (18.5%) had Grade II Teachers’ Certificate with a lesser percentage 9.3% of the respondents having Master’s degree. 55.3% retired from government organizations. 65% never underwent pre-retirement seminar. Findings also reveal that information needs of retirees covered environment (100%), investment (100%), volunteer service (100%), news and current affairs (100%), health (97.1%), finance (95.9%) and religion (94.7%). Most preferred information channels on daily basis are television (98.2%), radio (93.7%), family (81.5%), face-to-face contact (82.1%), and newspapers (71.9%). Most constraints to meeting their information needs include little attention given to retirees’ information needs (69.6%), finance (63.8%), poor involvement of retirees in policy affecting them (59.4%) and poor coverage of retirement matters (59.4%). Retirees’ information needs are diverse. More attention should be given to these using the relevant channels. Public libraries are encouraged to have programmes for retirees that meet their information needs while they could possibly develop some private library for themselves.

Keywords: Information, Information needs, Information channels, Retirees, Retirement