No More Gold Watches: Baby-Boomers and Retirement - Erika Andersen - How Work Works
I read something very interesting on the subway the other day; it was an HSBC ad that said, “Two-thirds of the people who have ever reached 65 are alive today.” It’s part of their “unlocking the world’s potential” ad campaign, which I like and find quite clever and innovative. But what I found most interesting was the fact itself. Think about it: that means that the people 65 or over right this minute are two out of every three 65+ year-olds who have ever lived, throughout history and all over the world. It spurred me to do a little more research, and I found out, for instance, that if you’re a 30-year-old woman living in the United States today, you are actuarially likely to live to be 83. If you were a 30-year-old American woman in 1900, you were likely to live to be 66. The numbers are similar for men, with a couple of years shaved off. I can’t help but reflect on the impact this will have on the workplace, especially over the next 10-15 years. Many of my baby-boomer compatriots, who are now in their mid-fifties to mid-sixties, have no interest in traditional retirement: the “65” number is meaningless to lots of us. We either like what we’re doing, and feel we’re good at it and are still adding value, or we want to take advantage of the all this wonderful time we have left to explore new careers or new studies, or to be a positive force in the world through non-profit or charitable ventures. So the “normal” progression we’re used to in corporations, of people moving up and then out in a pretty orderly fashion by the time they hit their sixties, making room for the next generation…what’s going to happen to that? My generation is going to hang around, cluttering up the work landscape. I anticipate a couple of outcomes: jobs will get more flexible, and younger people will be more likely to start businesses. For instance, I look at my own plans: I basically don’t intend to stop working till they carry me out on a board – I love what I do. But I imagine I’ll gradually wind down, over the next decade, to be working half-time or so, and then do that till I can’t do it any more. I suspect I am not unique, and given that, I can imagine many senior jobs shared by two older workers, or an older and a younger worker (perhaps someone with young kids, or someone who wants to pursue an advanced degree). We’ve gotten used to thinking of job sharing as being appropriate for lower or mid-level jobs: I think that will change. It also seems likely that more young people – watching me and my age-mates not leave the workplace – will decide to go off and start their own ventures, particularly in areas where we may not see the opportunities in the same way; social media, for instance, and whatever comes from subsequent iterations of technology. I think the percentage of business start-ups by people in their 20s will rise over the next decade. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts about this — what do you think will happen? -- http://blogs.forbes.com/erikaandersen/2011/01/30/no-more-gold-watches-baby-boomers-and-retirement/ Via InstaFetch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
