The rapid aging of the population observed in Japan cannot be compared with that in the U.S. and Europe.In Japan there is no precedent for redesigning life after retirement in a highly industrialized society. 2007 in Japan saw the retirement of many baby boomers. This exposed the problem of retirees to the whole nation.Countless, aging retirees now have to find new models to live by. Under the Japanese lifetime employment system retired people have developed a strong career identity through their working lives. As a result, switching identities has become a challenge for retired people. The fixed-age retirement issue, on which this paper is themed, is a highly socially demanding topic in this regard. The purpose of this study is to make clear how retired ‘company warriors’ are struggling to construct new relationships with others and rebuild their self-identity.

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The rapid aging of the population observed in Japan is incomparable to that in the U.S. and Europe, and one is left with almost no precedent model for redesigning life after retirement in this highly industrialized society. Today, Japanese society is full of retired people enjoying their longevity and thus creating an aging society. Besides, under the lifetime employment system, fixed-age retired people have developed a firm career identity through their long work life. For that reason, switching identities has become a challenge for retired people. The fixed-age retirement issue, on which this paper is themed, is a highly socially demanding topic in this regard. The purpose of this study is to clarify the difficulty for retirees to switch identities, which prior studies have not analyzed and to propose a social apparatus called retired people's house as a rite of passage, using Victor Turner's theory on the rites of passage. Retired people's house is modeled after Young men's house, a rite-of-passage apparatus designed to shift youths into adults. This paper consists of two surveys: 1) Quantitative survey on the activeness and relationships of fixed-age retired people by residential region and 2) a qualitative survey on the model case of retired people's house. Based on the acquired results, the paper discusses the possibilities of retired people's house.

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