Abstract

The problem. The purpose of this study was to identify factors affecting the life satisfaction of retired Thai military officers in the Royal Thai Army, the Royal Thai Navy, and the Royal Thai Air Force. ;Method. The sample used in this study consisted of officers who had been retired for not more than 10 years. A random sampling technique was used to sort out 435 information questionnaires which had been constructed with the Demographic Questionnaire and the Leadership Opinion Questionnaire. Percentage, arithmetic means, t-tests, F-tests, and Pearson Correlation Coefficient were used in the analysis, with the aid of the SPSS/PC+ computer software program. ;Results. The findings of the study indicated that the variables which were related to the differences in the level of life satisfaction of retirement were gender, period of time since retiring, marital status, level of education, place of residence, job holding with extra income, companionship in the family, rank held at retirement, and membership in organizations, at the statistical significant level below 0.05. The level of life satisfaction among male retirees was higher than that among females. The retirees who had been retired for fewer than five years had a higher level of life satisfaction than those who had been retired for more than five years. The retirees who were married had a higher level of life satisfaction than those who were single. The retirees with higher education had higher life satisfaction levels than those with only lower education. The retirees living in Bangkok had higher life satisfaction levels than those living in rural and suburban areas. The retirees who held a job with extra income had higher levels of life satisfaction than those who did not. The retirees who had family companionship had higher levels of life satisfaction than those living alone. The retirees who had higher rank held at retirement had a higher level of life satisfaction than those who had lower rank held at retirement. The retirees who were members of some kind of an organization had higher levels of life satisfaction than those who did not participate in any organizational activities. ;Other variables, namely current state of health, previous salary, and pension, were not related to the level of life satisfaction of retirees. ;Recommendations were made for policy change and for future research