Transitioning to Retirement

This chapter aims to contribute to literature on late career stages of academics considering transitioning and academics’ identity, viewed through James Gee&s;s identity model. The late-career stage and retirement entail transitions with shifts in roles, activities, and social relationships. The chapter describes these experiences through the interviews of eight academics in four countries. Institution and affinity identities where the most dominant identities which were reflected in these academics’ accounts. The reasons for retirement are individual, but common needs of belonging to a community were highlighted. In the late-career transition phase, identity appeared as strongly relational and reciprocal.