Is Retirement Obselete for Boomers?
The word retirement by definition means withdrawing from one’s occupation or from active working life. I found this definition in Webster-Merriam dictionary online. Here’s a question, should the word be redefined for modern society? Why redefine the word? Because back in the day when many of our parents parents retired there was a definite withdrawl from active work life. They wanted to retire and we wanted them to retire. Not so today!
Today, everything I read concerning baby boomers and retirement speaks to reinventing ones self.
According to a survey conducted by Merrill Lynch, The New Retirement Survey builds on the conventional wisdom that many baby boomers are not interested in pursuing a traditional retirement of leisure.
“Baby boomers fundamentally will reinvent retirement,” said James P. Gorman, president of the Merrill Lynch Global Private Client Group, in a news release about the survey. “With (baby) boomers living longer and remaining engaged and employed beyond age 65, many of the traditional financial assumptions regarding retirement need to be reexamined.”
According to a retirement survey by Merrill Lynch, the trend is for Baby Boomers to not stop working altogether in a traditional retirement sense — nor do Boomers want to keep working full-time until we keel over.
According to the survey, instead, Boomers are going into a new state I call “un-retirement.” A balancing of work and play is what many Boomers have in mind. Boomers are continuing to work, just perhaps not in the sense of staying in a corporate career or in the kind of job in which they have made a living for most of their lives.
I wonder is retirement an obsolete word? Maybe not, but I do think we could redefine the word to take into account people who choose to reinvent themselves and continue to live, move, breath and work in another job or career that enegizes and empowers them for the rest of their lives.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Being A Boomer, Mindset, Work
3 opinions for Is Retirement Obselete for Boomers?
Melanie
Apr 28, 2007 at 7:10 am
I have been reading many articles of late about how retirement is indeed obsolete for baby boomers.
And personally, something that I have been noticing is that so many of my women friends who are in midlife are re-inventing themselves and launching new careers or, more likely, starting their own businesses.
After doing some research on this, I discovered that creativity is really part of the aging process–something that I write about in a post on my own blog for midife women: http://www.softouchintimacy.com/betweenus/?p=82.
Darlene McDaniel
Apr 28, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Thanks for your comments. I like your thoughts about creativity being apart of the aging process. I would love to do some research on that to see how that might be relevant to boomers. Also for women who are reinventing themselves, and starting new careers, I want to give you another resource. My blog is called http://www.toughquestionsgreatanswers.net/. It is a blog about interviewing and the hiring process. There may be some great information for your readers.
Al Kernek
Jul 16, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Unfortunately, most articles addressing baby boomer retirement overlook the financial realities of this generation - namely, that life, divorces and the economy have decimated 401K’s and home equities.
According to a June 24, 2008 report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research: The decline in home values has reduced the prospect of comfortable retirements for the majority of near retirees. “This extraordinary destruction of wealth will have tremendous implications for millions of families as they enter retirement,” wrote report co-author Dean Baker. “Coupled with a very low personal savings rate, this means that many people will only have Social Security and Medicare to rely on in their retirement.”
By some estimates, up to two-thirds of baby boomers will not have the financial resources to enjoy a retirement consistent with their current life style. They will have to work longer and settle for less. For them, retirement will mean learning how to stretch their dollars. They will also have to be open to making (sometimes dramatic) changes in their lives to achieve a “comfortable” retirement at a level supported by their income.
For the majority of baby boomers, retirement isn’t going to be like that of their parents. It will be more frugal, more innovative, and more active. But for a generation that wants to be the captain of their own time after grinding it out for so many years, they will find a way and continue to contribute to society.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: