We were interested in how the retirement transition shapes the structure of time and how these changes, in turn, affect the way people see themselves. Conceptualized as a relation between subjective time and self-concept, we theorized that it can shed more light on the heterogeneity of aging processes at the individual level. We used the narrative method to collect 14 life stories among elders with different retirement tenure. Three distinct time-structuring modes occurring as a response to the retirement transition were identified using the constructivist grounded theory methodology. However, these temporal positions tended to shift in more senior cases, mostly as a response to the contingencies of later life guided by inner functions of reflexivity. Those changes were usually not sudden, eliciting interesting problems of blended temporalities and temporal persistence, which we argue accounts for the duration of these shifts. In conclusion, we develop a conceptual understanding of self-concept in relation to the folding of subjective time and its linear progression in the individual aging process.

我们对退休过渡如何塑造时间结构以及这些变化如何反过来影响人们看待自己的方式感兴趣。概念化为主观时间和自我概念之间的关系，我们认为它可以在个体层面上更多地揭示衰老过程的异质性。我们采用叙事的方法收集了14个不同退休年限的老年人的生活故事。使用建构主义扎根理论方法确定了三种不同的时间结构模式，作为对退休过渡的响应。然而，这些时间位置在更高级的情况下往往会发生变化，主要是作为对由反思性的内在功能引导的晚年生活偶然事件的反应。这些变化通常不是突然的，引发了混合时间性和时间持久性的有趣问题，我们认为这是这些转变的持续时间的原因。总之，我们对与主观时间的折叠及其在个体衰老过程中的线性进展有关的自我概念形成了概念性的理解。