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A Life Design Perspective on the Work to Retirement Transition

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New perspectives on career counseling and guidance in Europe

Abstract

Two important evolutions of the 21st century are the recognition of retirement as a normative third age in the lifespan and the rapid economic and social changes individuals need to adapt to. The objective of this chapter is to examine the transition from work to retirement using a life design perspective that relies on the concepts of identity, meaning, and mattering. The proposed conceptual framework delineates how subjective identity forms are articulated between individuals’ salient roles in different life domains and through time, and how meaning is provided by the fulfillment of individuals’ key goods and perception of mattering. The case of a 69-year old Swiss man—a former entrepreneur, now fully retired–—illustrates that identity continuity and shift can occur among different life domains through time, and how specific key goods and sense of mattering may enhance meaning in life.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    While the author’s thesis is unpublished, a summary has been recently published in French. Please refer to: Froidevaux (2016).

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Author notes

  1. This contribution was supported in part by a postdoctoral mobility fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (Project 168394). The author would also like to thank Mrs Saskia Degli-Antoni for conducting the two semi-structured interviews with Pierre and for proof-reading the case to ensure accuracy, and Prof. Dr. Andreas Hirschi, who, as thesis advisor, provided many insightful comments on the retirement transition and the concepts of identity, meaning, and mattering throughout the development of the author’s dissertation—which served as the basis of this current work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Warrington College of Business, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Ariane Froidevaux

  2. University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Ariane Froidevaux

Authors
  1. Ariane Froidevaux
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Correspondence to Ariane Froidevaux .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. INETOP, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métie INETOP, Paris, France

    Valérie Cohen-Scali

  2. Inst. of Psych,Geopolis 4207, University of Lausanne Inst. of Psych,Geopolis 4207, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jerome Rossier

  3. Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia e Psicologia Applicata, Università di Padova Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia e Psicologia Applicata, Padova, Italy

    Laura Nota

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Froidevaux, A. (2018). A Life Design Perspective on the Work to Retirement Transition. In: Cohen-Scali, V., Rossier, J., Nota, L. (eds) New perspectives on career counseling and guidance in Europe . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61476-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61476-2_6

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