The Beat Goes On: Sixty-Somethings Embrace the Future

Really? You actually thought the Boomers were going to 'go gentle into that good night?'

That they would graciously cede their status, incomes, prestige, notoriety, joy and obstinacy? After all they have done or meant to do or maybe didnt mean to do but will take credit for anyway? Yeah, dream on, dude. If they're leaving at all, it'll be feet first and in no particular hurry.

In Europe, Japan, the US and even China, a demographic changing of the guard in under way. But the outgoing 'guards' dont seem too anxious to hand over the keys. Boomers are hitting the traditional retirement age in massive numbers. But research suggests that people actually view themselves as ten years younger than they really are. In the Boomers' case, that means that instead of adventure vacations, they are plotting new ventures. And sometimes they are even filing lawsuits to hold on to old ones.

This is not necessarily good news for upcoming generations of Xers and Yers whose employment prospects are not exactly overwhelming. But the Boomers were not especially respectful of their elders and they sure as hell dont seem intent on doing their successors any favors either. To the extent that benefits can be ascribed to this trend, it is that their experience and knowledge may be transferred more fully. In addition, if they choose to invest some of their retirement savings in new enterprises, all of society may share in the rewards.

Whatever the outcome may portend, the sixty-somethings are undeterred. Attitudes and legal statutes have changed to protect against 'ageism' while more health conscious living has enabled longer lives. The Boomers mean to test the laws of man and nature. However you may feel about this, it probably doesnt pay to bet against them; their record of getting what they want has been pretty good, so far. JL

Emma Jacobs reports in the Financial Times:

The demographic shift of an ageing population means that people who traditionally would now have been approaching retirement will continue to work for a living.

As befits a career in investment banking, Jonathan Francis takes a precise view of his life’s phases. At 67 he is, he says, embarking on Act Three. He defines Act One as babyhood, infancy and education; Act Two, as career and family. Now, he has quit finance not for a life on the golf course but to start a new business valuing handcrafted furniture.
Two years into his new working life, the trained economist based in Boston, Massachusetts no longer spends his days evaluating the market price of stocks and bonds but rather chairs and tables.

Mr Francis is one of a number of people in their 60s who continue to work beyond the traditional retirement age – by choice or necessity – and embark on a second career, sometimes labelled an “encore career”.

In his book The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife, Marc Freedman, a commentator on baby boomers, describes a future in which millions of people in their 60s and 70s will be needed to support those living into their 80s and 90s.
New Directions, a Boston-based career consultancy that charges people between $15,000 and $50,000 for its services, advised Mr Francis on his second career. Founded in the 1990s to assist senior executives – who were typically earning salaries of more than $200,000 – to make a career move, New Directions had observed an increase in the number of sixty­somethings looking for full-time jobs in the wake of the latest economic downturn. For some, the financial crisis has hit their pensions so they must continue to work for an income. For others the idea of swapping their briefcases for golf caddies simply fills them with horror.
Mr Francis recoils at the notion of retirement. “I don’t need the money,” he says. “If I didn’t make another penny I would be fine, but would be unhappy to do nothing.” As well as working for non-profit organisations he is developing a business born out of his hobby. The remuneration for his new business activity might not be important to him financially but it is still important for his sense of status. It means “I still have a skill that has value”.

The big shift

● By 2050, about one in five Americans will be aged over 65, up from
13 per cent of the US population now. In England and Wales, the figure will be 24 per cent and in Japan 39 per cent.
● Longevity has already altered the employment profile in Japan: according to a report published by the OECD in 2011, men leave the Japanese labour market on average at 70 and women at 67.
● The UK’s Office for National Statistics estimates that people aged 50 to 64 accounted for about half the country’s increase in self-employment in the past four years. Those aged 65 and over make up another third of the increase.

Patricia Smith, senior vice-president at New Directions, refuses even to use the word “retirement” – preferring in­stead to describe it as a career shift to “a portfolio of activities”; she sees mid­dle age as extending to 80. “There is a life-expectancy shift, a recognition that older people have more time to work; they may be burnt out by their current jobs and yearn to feel passionate about work again.”
Stevan Rolls, UK head of human resources at Deloitte, the professional services firm, says: “When people get to the traditional retirement age we now have career conversations with them. We can’t assume they want to retire.” It is a conversation a number of organisations are having – sometimes because of new rules against age discrimination but also because, like Deloitte, they are keen to retain expertise, perhaps in exchange for more flexible work arrangements. Until recently the real estate team at Deloitte employed an octogenarian on staff three days a week.
Less enlightened employers will have to change their attitude to older workers, says 63-year-old Bonnie Harrison, who is currently making a car­eer shift from HR at Corning, the US industrial manufacturer, to becoming a chaplain in hospices: “If you keep people in a job where they are not stimulated, then they do start thinking about golf. But if you give older workers the opportunities they will be energised and can work for another 20 or even 30 years.”
Some who have had a lucrative career in the private sector are keen to spend their later years “giving something back”, perhaps doing charity work or setting up a charitable foundation. Others seek a job in the non-profit sector.
The US Encore Fellowship was set up to help older professionals make the move out of the private sector. Established in Silicon Valley in 2009, initially funded by the David and Lucile Packard foundation and Hewlett-Packard, it helps experienced professionals in their 50s and 60s (most are in their 60s) gain experience in new fields. Over a period of six months to a year they receive a stipend to work outside the corporate sector.
One Intel employee last year worked in an Arizona rehabilitation centre. Leslye Louie, the programme’s director, says most of her interns, as the programme calls them, “don’t see themselves retiring, they have energy and want to make a contribution”. The interviewing process “screens people for humility. There is an anxiety from those in the public sector that people coming from the private sector might be arrogant. We make it clear that they are there to learn and to share their skills.”
Mr Francis observes some of his contemporaries in finance clinging on to their old jobs out of fear. “They are afraid of doing something else and don’t know their interests.” He is sympathetic: “When I was working I didn’t have any time for serious thinking about my interests”.
Ms Smith believes men in particular find leaving their full-time job for semi-retirement daunting. “Our old­er female clients tend not to want to go into a full-time job. Men see leaving their senior jobs as losing their status. It might be seen as a failure. So much of what men do at work is status-related.” For many men, she adds, undertaking career counselling is the only way they would experience anything akin to therapy.
Of course, many sixtysomethings embarking on an encore career will be doing so because they have no choice – they may have been hit by company redundancy programmes aimed at encouraging older, more ex­pensive workers to leave. As Steven Sass, of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, puts it: “The downturn means that workers want to delay retirement because of money, and employers want them out because of the money.”
One sixtysomething HR executive says: “Older workers may be viewed as having limited upward career potential. When there is an economic or corporate downturn these positions are vulnerable to cuts. They may be offered another position at a lower salary or may be offered a contract job with no benefits.”
Yet for those lucky enough to find a new, invigorating career, there may be a change of perspective. Mr Francis reflects on his life choices: “I grew up on a farm and didn’t know about design. If I had, maybe I would have chosen a different career path.”