Correlates of Pre-Retirement Anxiety among Civil Servants in Bayelsa and Rivers States, Nigeria

The study examined the predictors of pre-retirement anxiety among civil servants in Nigeria’s Bayelsa and Rivers States. The study’s dilemma is that pre-retirement is a moment of uncertainty caused by stress and anxiety due to Nigeria’s bad economy. As a result, potential retirees may be concerned about how they would pay their bills and provide for their families. In view of this, the shift from working life to retirement is both painful and thoughtful. A correlational design was used in the study. The approach involved getting a list of civil servants in the two states, which included a total of 68,125 civil servants from the State Ministries in Bayelsa and Rivers States, who served as the study’s population. The sample consisted of 1,144 federal personnel chosen using cluster and stratified sampling; and employing the purposive method in selecting civil servants with less than ten years to their retirement. The Pre-retirement Anxiety Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Determinants of Pre-retirement Anxiety Questionnaire (DPAQ) were used to collect data, with reliability values of 0.78 and 0.68, respectively. The research questions were examined using multiple regression analysis, while the regression analysis’s Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to assess the null hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The data demonstrated that fear of retirement had a strong link with pre-retirement anxiety, and ANOVA combined with linear regression yielded a significant computed F value of 32117.107. The findings also revealed that economic factors had a strong link with pre-retirement anxiety, with ANOVA combined with linear regression yielding a significant estimated F value of 765.295. Finally, a decrease in social status exhibited a strong link with pre-retirement anxiety, and ANOVA with linear regression revealed a significant estimated F value of 226.898. Based on the findings, the study stated that pre-retirement worry was unavoidable and that federal servants should be made aware of what it entails and how to reduce its harmful impacts.