AbstractThis study compares employees' descriptions of their jobs with their subsequent descriptions of the same jobs after they have been retired for some time; it also compares employees' descriptions of their expected retirement lives with their descriptions of their lives after they have actually retired. This will aid in the interpretation of past (and future) research about retirement that collects data only from older employees before they retire or only from retirees after they have retired, but not from people at both times of their lives. Retirees' retrospective reports of job descriptions agreed strongly with their prior reports, and employees' prospective reports of their retirement activities agreed moderately well with their subsequent reports.