Work constitutes a central component of a person's identity. Retirement, which is a significant change in life, also affects the way one's identity is established upon entering this new stage in life. Continuing to work after retirement enables individuals to maintain their professional identity alongside their retirement identity, thus facilitating the transition and entry into a new stage of life. The current study uses in-depth interviews to examine post-retirement working among Israeli doctors who have retired over the past few years but continue to work. The findings show that doctors have difficulty shedding their professional identity since the medical profession was, and still is, central to their overall identity. They thus experience retirement as a forced event rather than a desirable transition. However, by continuing to work, they preserve their status as doctors, which imparts a feeling of still being needed and thus enhances their self-image. Working beyond retirement allows doctors to put off the advent of old age and to avoid self-definition as retired persons, thus allowing them to preserve their professional status and hybrid identity.

工作是一个人身份的核心组成部分。退休是生活中的一个重大变化，也会影响一个人在进入这个新的生活阶段后建立身份的方式。退休后继续工作可以使个人在保持退休身份的同时保持职业身份，从而促进过渡和进入新的生活阶段。当前的研究使用深度访谈来检查过去几年退休但仍在工作的以色列医生的退休后工作。研究结果表明，医生很难摆脱他们的职业身份，因为医疗职业过去是，现在仍然是他们整体身份的核心。因此，他们将退休视为一种被迫的事件，而不是一种理想的过渡。然而，通过继续工作，他们保留了医生的地位，这给人一种仍然被需要的感觉，从而提高了他们的自我形象。退休后的工作使医生能够推迟老年的到来，避免自我定义为退休人员，从而使他们能够保持自己的职业地位和混合身份。