Returning to work after retiring, called bridge employment, is rapidly becoming a common phenomenon in the work world. Despite its increasing prevalence, relatively little is known about the outcomes and processes. One proposed explanation of the relationship between bridge employment and outcomes such as health and life satisfaction is the role of identity-related changes. There are many identity related losses (e.g., loss of status) and transitions (e.g., no longer a full-time employee, no longer a supervisor) inherent in bridge employment. However, no studies have directly considered how identities are constructed to respond to these changes. Using a qualitative, grounded theory approach in which 46 individuals participated in semi-structured interviews, this dissertation seeks to answer the question of “How do individuals come to define who they are during the identity-related losses and liminality experienced during bridge employment?” These results expand existing theory to explain how bridge employment identities are constructed through an iterative process of reconciling preretirement career identities, retirement identities, and bridge employment identities. Specifically, identity threats, often spurred by losses of work roles, relationships, and health related to retiring, were successfully eliminated through substituting the motive for an alternative motive or redefining the motive. Bridge employment was also a time for motives such as self-actualization, reinvention, and generativity. Successful satisfaction of identity motives drove participants to internalize the bridge employment identities. Moreover non-work identities, such as being a volunteer or grandparent, became more important and fulfilled identity motives, even though they were generally in conflict with bridge employment identities and took time away from it. Moreover, participants reported that non-work activities were able to fulfill identity motives. In proving important to one’s identity, non-work identities became more central to one’s identity. Finally, the preretirement career identity enhanced the bridge employment identity and was sometimes changed itself through the iterative nature of the identity construction process. This research enriches our understanding of identity construction during bridge employment as well as suggests practical ways to improve the experience of working after retirement.

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Data from various sources indicate that the world’s population is aging and doing so at an unprecedented way. Global population figure of people aged 60 years and over have doubled since the 1980s. While these figures are indications of reduced fertility rate, improved life style, advanced medical technologies, there is also the school of thought that aging population pose as a challenge to the fiscal and macroeconomic stability of many countries. There is also another school of thought that argues that aged population also constitute an important part of the labour force or the labour market that have not been given much attention. Because people are living longer, older people are postponing retirement, hence, transitioning into bridge employment or grey entrepreneurship. Therefore, this study aims to develop understanding of how aging health workers transition to post-retirement work, in a comparative study. To answer this aim, a qualitative study was designed with the intention of developing a great understanding of the intensions and aspirations of health workers on their post-retirement career. Participants in this study were aging doctors and nurses in Sweden and Ghana. Data collection was done through the use of semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions with ten doctors and nurses each in Ghana and Sweden. The results show that almost all the respondents expressed the desire for a post-retirement career. We found that while every doctor in Sweden has the chance to participate in career bridge employment, it was only the specialized doctors that are more likely to have the chance to participate in career bridge employment in Ghana. However, almost all the respondents, except doctors in Sweden, expressed the desire for grey entrepreneurship, some have actually started their small businesses, for instance, one doctor owns and runs a non-governmental health delivery organization that delivers free health services to people in rural areas and in his community. To conclude, this study has shown that the desire and willingness of a post-retirement career especially in Ghana is influenced mostly by familial and economic factors, while personal factors explain that for Swedish doctors and nurses.

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Les objectifs de l’étude : cette étude a pour objectif d’explorer la relation entre les différents niveaux d’ajustement personne-environnement de travail et deux types d’intentions de retraite (i.e., retraite définitive et l’intention d’occuper un emploi de transition). Le design de recherche / la méthodologie : le questionnaire de recherche a été distribué au près d’un échantillon composé de 357 personnes âgées de 50 et plus, employées dans le secteur privée en France. Les hypothèses ont été testées en utilisant les modèles d’équation structurelle (SEM). Les résultats : les résultats de l’étude indiquent que l’ajustement entre les capacités du senior et les demandes du poste qu’il occupe est positivement et significativement liée aux deux intentions de retraite incluses dans cette étude. Aussi, les résultats de l’étude démontrent que l’ajustement personne–organisation (besoins–ressources) et l’ajustement personne-profession (congruence de valeurs) sont positivement et significativement liés à l’intention d’occuper un emploi de transition une fois retiré de l’emploi de carrière. Les apports de la recherche : l’extension du domaine d’étude des antécédents du départ à la retraite, cette étude considère la complexité de la préparation de la transition vers la retraite en explorant différents types d’intentions de départ à la retraite et l’intégration des différents niveaux d’ajustement personne-environnement dans leur étude / Purpose : this study aims to explore the relationship between the different levels of person-environment fit and two types of retirement intention (i.e., full retirement and intention to hold a bridge employment). Design/ methodolgy / approach : a representative sample of 357 aged 50 and over employed in french private-sector completed a research survey. Hypotheses were tested by using structural equation models. Findings : the results showed that : the fit between older worker’s abilities and the demands of the job was related positively to the two kinds of intentions included in this study. The perception of values congruence at the profession level and the fit between needs and supplies at the organizational level were also positively and signficantly related to the intention to hold a bridge employment after being retired from career employment. Research limitations : there are several limitations to the study : the cross sectional design, the direction of personne-environment fit, the intentional nature of our dependant variable, the mediating role of attitudinal variables. Originality / value : expanding previous research studies, the research considers the complexity of preparation of retirement transition by exploring different types of retirement intentions and the P-E fit factors related to them

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