What is the relationship between identity and the transition to retirement and how is the transition facilitated by the use of technology?

The objective of this research was to investigate the changes in identities of older adults transitioning to retirement and how information technology (IT) facilitates these changes. This was achieved by reviewing relevant literature pertaining to the key components of the research question and exploring the relationships between them, followed by a study of retired school teachers in Canada. Two major trends that have emerged today are that seniors are active contributing members of society and that the use of information technology is ubiquitous. The result is a population of older adults who are more active and engaged in society, have more positive identities than their predecessors, and who use IT. This research is relevant as the previous generation generally did not use .IT. The next generation will be computer literate and IT will have advanced significantly by the time they retire. The teacher demographic was chosen as they are generally educated, financially stable, relatively healthy and use IT, factors that are likely to facilitate a positive identity when transitioning to retirement. Another demographic with different characteristics would likely give different results. The results, which were generally consistent with the literature reviewed, showed that, in general, the teachers were socially active, had a positive identity and felt fully transitioned to retirement, mostly within two years. They have transferred their skills while working and applied them to their current activities. The results are significant as they investigate the association between factors that were previously well researched, but the relationships between them had not been widely explored. Applying the results can be useful to organizations to prepare their constituents for retirement.