Monday 19 November 2018

More on the Changing Nature of Retirement

There's been a recent flurry of articles on retirement, mostly focusing on older people staying in the workforce longer than prior generations.

An examples is Harvard Business Review's When No One Retires. It covers the fact that the world is rapidly getting older, as is shown in the article chart below.

World getting older

It also goes into detail on what this means for corporations and their workforces. Key quote:

This societal shift will undoubtedly change work, too: More and more Americans want to work longer — or have to, given that many aren't saving adequately for retirement. Soon, the workforce will include people from as many as five generations ranging in age from teenagers to 80-somethings.

CNBC's article Baby boomers face more risks to their retirement than previous generations focuses on the "many aren't saving adequately for retirement". 

It points out that aging boomers hold less wealth, are deeper in debt and will face higher expenses than current retirees. This data comes from a study by the Stanford Center on Longevity

Key article quote on what could happen due to boomers lacking the retirement savings they need:

That many people could exit the workforce unprepared, the researchers note, could have profound consequences for the well-being of these individuals and society. “Boomers who run out of funds towards the end of life will either fall back on children, who by then will be in their 50s and 60s, or the social safety network,” said Jialu Streeter, a research scientist at Stanford.

Another issue is where are all these old people going to live and who's going to take care of them.

The New York Times article The future of Aging Just Might be in Margaritaville looks at these issues. It covers a new retirement community named after and based on the Jimmy Buffet song Margaritaville.

And yes, as the article picture below illustrates, the residents do appear to be having fun and "wasting away" there.

Margaritaville

We've long covered the trend towards aging baby boomers working past the age people used to retire. A good example is the 2016 article For Boomers, Work is the New Retirement. It's conclusion is still relevant today:

It's quite clear at this point growing numbers of older Americans are going to stay in the workforce. It's also clear that many of these older Americans will choose independent work. 

This assumes they aren't partying to much to work. 



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