摘要：We are at a unique point in histor y when an unprecedente d number of women are beginning to re - tire. Earlier work has suggested that women have few identity concer ns in re tirement because they had less att achment to the labor force. In contrast, women of the baby-boomer ge neration ar e the fi rst cohorts to have participated in signifi cant numbers in the paid work force since the institutionaliza- tion of re tirement. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews, this ar ticle explores baby-boomer women's process of leaving the paid work force and quer ies what retireme nt means to them. It focuse s on the eroding boundary between work and re tirement and issues of pe rsonal and social identity for the r esearch participants. When women retire, they navigate a number of key boundaries between full-time, paid and other work and betwe en their own transitions and the transitions of others in their lives. The women's social identity re. ects their exper ience of the intersection of retireme nt, ag ing, and gender. The themes that permeate the interviews include the loss of a primary identity without having a new positive identity to claim, being retired as a conversation stopper, and exper iencing the invisibility that often comes with aging. Developing a unique identity and fi nding new meaning as a retiree is a challenging process for baby-boomer women as they negotiate "lingering identitie s" to avoid cross- ing the identity boundary from professional to retired. The ar ticle uses the words of the r esearch participants to explor e how they constr uct boundaries betwee n work and retire ment, the exte nt of their per meability, and the impact of women's relationships and identity on those boundar ies.
