The Economist had a report a couple of weeks ago on the impact of ageing populations on society’s ability to care for the aged, especially with slow growth and labour shortages. The article has got me thinking about retirement quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not planning my retirement per se, I live by the seat of my pants and I take on a lot of risk right now. But at the same time it’s something you think about, especially as parents and loved ones get older. It was an interesting article but it basically focused on the economic effect of ageing populations but with the basic assumption that retirement ages and regulations will stay they way they are.
I’m hoping they don’t.
I came across a list of billionaires on wikipedia, and noticed a lot of them are still going and are well over 70. Rupert Murdoch and Warren Buffet are both running things. Carl Icahn and Silvio Berlusconi are both raising hell and aren’t really showing any signs of stopping. John McCain was running for President of the United States at 72, if he had won and served two terms that would have taken him up to 80! I’m sure there are health and science studies which back up the connection between working till later in life and a higher quality of life later on, I’m just to lazy to go looking for them.
Closer to home the Bee’s mom is over 60 and has started a yoga class as well as working considerably and my mom, while she qualifies for early retirement, is fine to keep working. She has her holidays, goes travelling then, working keeps her mind going and active.
Sure there may be health reasons which stop you from being able to work, but there’s nothing stopping people from making a career switch later in life, doing something less strenuous either physically or mentally. But you may want to pick a bigger challenge later in life, Bill Gates has switched from software to eliminating poverty as he approaches his late 50s.
The days of working for the same company for 20-30-40 years are over. People switch companies and in a lot of instances people change careers quite a bit over there professional lives. It seems rather arbitrary to have an age where your career has to stop. I’ll change what I’m doing, maybe, but stop me when I’m dead.
Note to self, book a calendar event for 35 years from now to see if I feel the same way.
UPDATE – just to clarify, the bee’s mom began teaching a yoga class. As she wrote as a facebook comment on this post “just to clarify, my mum has started teaching a yoga class, not just taking it 
if you are giving her credit, give her all of it! xoxo
good post – i would like to be like my mother when i get to retirement age – she did a BSc at age 50, and then at 60 decided to become a yoga teacher. retirement for her just means a career change. its great that she stays relevant and she remains a fantastic role model!”
