Should You Ever Retire? |
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Many Americans plan to work into their 70s or never retire.
Others seek a phased retirement in which one scales back responsibilities.
Working provides not just income but purpose.
According to a recent Transamerica Center study, 57 percent of baby boomer workers believe they will retire sometime in their 70s or don’t plan on retiring at all. Some 48 percent of U.S. workers believe they’ll have a “phased retirement,” where they would gradually wind down their responsibilities and job duties to have more leisure time.
If or when one should retire is a wholly personal decision based on many factors, including how much one likes the job (and the boss, if there is one). A slew of other variables goes into the mix, such as how much money an individual has tucked away and, as important, what one plans to do while retired. (Some retirees complete their bucket list in six months and then have no idea how to spend the next 20 or so years they may have.) How long one expects to live is actually a critical issue, as that heavily determines the relative size of a nest egg. Americans think more about money than lifespan, as death is largely an unmentionable subject in our culture.
Why are Americans delaying or completely giving up what was considered a cherished part of life, a reward for decades of work? To put it most simply, Americans like to work, a legacy of our Puritanical ethic in which work is divinely ordained. This is especially true for baby boomers, who closely associate what they do for a living with their personal identity. Postponing or completely abandoning retirement is not surprisingly becoming more common among this generation (even as the first wave reaches age 80 this year!).
Fortunately, many companies are catching on to the fact that older workers are a valuable resource, and innovative ways to connect the two sides of the equation are emerging. New customized job-matching platforms geared to jobseekers aged 55-plus and employers seeking a fresh source of talent are emerging. For many workers, phased retirement makes a lot of sense as it allows them to maintain their professional identity (and generate some income) while affording more time to pursue their particular passions.
Better not make a career move if one doesn't plan to retire or wants to phase out, however. In the current work environment, keeping one’s job as long as possible is the best career move anyone can make, assuming the individual, regardless of age, finds the work meaningful and life-enriching. Rather than think about “career moves,” it’s wiser to think in terms of how work helps achieve one’s goals in life.
Not surprisingly, given our extraordinary diversity, Americans vary widely in their retirement plans. Some literally count the days until they can clean out their desk and take home their plant, while others dread the thought of not having somewhere to go weekday mornings. For most of us, given the decline of pensions, increasing insecurity of Social Security, rising cost of living, and greater longevity, working as long as one physically can is a very smart strategy.
There are both pros and cons to continuing to work as long as we physically can. We may bemoan bad bosses and annoying colleagues, but work typically provides us with purpose, which, second to health, is arguably the most important asset an individual can possess. Facing challenges and solving problems, even if seemingly mundane in the big scheme of things, is a fundamental aspect of the human condition. Almost all jobs are somehow collaborative, and we tend to underestimate the social component of our work lives. Then, of course, there’s the money; one more day of working means one less day we’ll have to draw down our savings.
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The biggest downside to continuing to work into one’s 70s or longer is that there’s a whole big world out there, and one never knows how much time there will be to discover it.
Is retirement good for your health? A systematic review of longitudinal studies. BMC Public Health. 2013 Dec. I. van der Heide et al.
Factors associated with quality of life in retirement: A systematic review. Rev Bras Med Trab. 2023 Feb. I.G. Paschoalotto Silva et al.