Baby Boomers Might Never Retire — Episode 185 — Rock Your Retirement
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS
The reality nowadays is that Baby Boomers have turned its back on the belief that 65 is the right time to retire. Most of them want to work well into their 70s or their 80s or even yet, they might never retire. Baby boomers are born between 1946 and 1965. So, most of them are now in their 70s and the youngest would be 54. Boomers will definitely hold a lot of the most senior and well-paying jobs in the workplace. But some of them won’t retire because either they haven’t saved up yet or are just not ready to hang it up.
5 Generations in the Workforce
With the trend of those people in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s deciding to stay with their jobs and never retire, it resulted in a new occurrence of more generations in the workplace. That is why today, many workplaces are composed of five generations:
- Traditionalists — born before 1946
- Baby Boomers — born between 1946 and 1965
- Generations X — born between 1965 and 1980
- Generations Y, or Millennials — born between 1981 and 1995
- Generations Z — born between 1996 and 2012
That mixture will provide benefits in terms of the wide range of ideas and knowledge from a broad group of people that can serve the workplace well.
Bridge Jobs: Why it Might be Ok to Never Retire
The article, Report: 85% of Baby Boomers plan to work into their 70s (and even 80s), talks about bridge jobs (e.g., teaching, social work, counseling). Basically, it’s a bridge between full-time work and retirement or a temporary or short-time job right after your full-time career. People who are attracted to these jobs are usually people who aren’t fully ready for retirement. Besides teaching, social work, and counseling where they have more say over what they’re doing, there are also second careers such as real estate agents, driving, music, or writing.
Those bridge jobs are like we’re looking at what we’ve done in our past, 20 or 30 years in what every field you did and seeing an opportunity that will open up to us. The big question in this matter is, what do I want to be when I grow up? Because it now allows us to ask ourselves that question once again. You don’t have to be 10, 20 or on the verge of entering college.
What’s Going to Happen to the Younger People?
We have so many people that want to work. So, what will happen to younger people? The generations X, Y, and Z? Do you think it will be difficult for them to find a job because of this?
That is one fear and myth that exist. There are a lot of job openings, job availabilities and they will look for different classes of workers. Those jobs will not be limiting one or the other, especially if you’re doing a bridge job. If I get a job as a real estate agent, that will not prevent a young real estate agent from entering that field. If I get a job working for Uber, that will not stop a younger person from working for Uber. And if I’m writing, that will not stop you from writing. That is because we will have different styles.
Why are People Choosing to Work Longer and Is It Going to be a Problem?
It’s in our own minds that we think if there are many people who choose to never retire, it will be a problem. These are fears that are established from somewhere that just don’t have any reality in life.
There are negative misconceptions around older workers that must be dealt with. One persistent idea is that boomers are standing in the way of younger talent moving up in an organization. In Deloitte’s 2018 global capital trends report, 15% of respondents believe that older employees were “impediment to rising talent.”
People believe that to be the case, especially with retirement age being 65 and people are refusing to retire or wanting to never retire. That’s why where that thought came from is that you’re holding us back and there’s this new wave of young talent coming in, you got to move out. But that’s not true; it’s just that myth and the truth though is that there are 14 million job openings available. So, there’s got to be some for baby boomers and some for everybody else.
There are other Jobs for the Newly Retired
Older workers might fall into different categories. Work- but maybe not full-time. Besides the bridge worker, we have some other types like alumni
workers (people who left and came back), the tenured workers, gig workers, on-call workers, and the self-employed.
When people retire, they expected it to be fun, but it’s not what they thought it to be. Also, they tend to become bored and sometimes it’s because it’s not giving them the social interaction. And then they realized, huh, maybe I could go back as a consultant? Or a part-timer. That is why they might want to go back to their old job. Because what the older people bring is the wisdom, the experience, and mentorship.
About Our Co-Host
Kristen Edens is a content developer and brand specialist. She works with businesses to create realistic content plans that help them grow and thrive. What’s a content plan? Basically, it’s free information that helps let people know what you know, and once they know you, they might contact you to help them.
For example, this show! It didn’t start out as a content plan, because I don’t talk about money or investments, or insurance really, but people wind up finding out that I sell Medicare insurance, and then when they need it, they reach out to me. So that is what Kristen does. I met Kristen Eden on Twitter. She has a lot of great ideas about retirement.
You can also visit her at KristenEdens.com
Mentioned in this Episode:
MedicareQuick.com/Checklist
Report: 85% of Baby Boomers plan to work into their 70s (and even 80s) by Sheila McClear
This post about retirement and retirement lifestyle first appeared on http://RockYourRetirement.com
Originally published at https://www.rockyourretirement.com on July 29, 2019.
