Working longer? Professional and non-professional challenges of teachers' retirement

In Quebec, because of the aging of population and the introduction by the government of policies to keep people in employment, teachers are invited to stay in employment longer and put off retirement. Our article seeks to determine if teachers can be open to such policies, and for what reasons they could be, through an analysis of their working conditions and life trajectories. The research is based on 24 semi-structured interviews, with teachers aged 50 and over, in francophone school boards in Quebec. We show that most teachers do not envisage to stay longer in employment in education, but many plan to retire from their position and come back to work in other sectors, or under other conditions. The way teachers approach retirement reveals inequalities as to the way social times and work-life issues are articulated throughout the working life all the way to the transition into retirement.