Retirement Isnt That for Old People
welcome
to the future
[Music]
my name is michelle silver i think
now is a good time for us to rethink
retirement
how did you imagine spending the last
few chapters
of your life we are living
in remarkable times on average
we’re living longer now than we have
in all of human history yet
we tend not to spend much time thinking
about the implications of living a
longer life
now looking around the room i imagine
that some of you are in
early stages of your careers you might
be thinking
do i really need to think about
retirement
now and my answer
is yes whether you love the idea
or you hate the word retirement or you
haven’t spent much time
thinking about it your perceptions
about retirement and aging have an
impact
on how you treat mature adults
and on how you will plan your careers
and ultimately on how you will embrace
your own aging right now
there are intense intergenerational
tensions that come up when we talk about
retirement
because of my work people often confront
me to say
you know if so and so would just retire
our organization would be so much better
off
and on the other hand i hear from mature
workers who
feel unheard undervalued
or who question the motivation
or the desire for work-life balance
among the younger generation
recently i watched a funny show
where the host described retirement as
like a typewriter
and translation for those of you who
might have had a typewriter like me in
your life
the idea is that for the younger
generation
retirement is obscure
it’s obsolete it’s something that
they’re being burdened by from the older
generation from
and the idea is
that we really ought to not
have retirement be something that the
younger generation of workers
is burdened by and retirement also
shouldn’t be a vehicle for exiling
mature workers so
i want to share some history and some
strategies
about retirement because ultimately
it’s going to be up to you to decide
whether and how you plan and
advocate for your retirement
i have to tell you when i first went to
make this slide i typed the word
retirement
and this image popped up and i thought
wow is that what we’re supposed to think
of when we think of
retirement an old man slightly hunched
over with a cane
and it’s funny because when you look to
ads or
media images of retirement typically
you get a nice airbrushed photo like
this one
of a couple on the beach and here
the idea of retirement is fantastic
no work income still arriving
and all the time in the world
the problem is that both of these ideas
are a bit out of date
so consider that for most of human
history
life expectancy has been around 35 years
old
and now global
life expectancy is over 70 years old
in less than 200 years
we have more than doubled our life
expectancy
now living longer has implications
for every aspect of life and society
for one living longer means that you’d
better take
extra good care of your teeth
living longer also has implications for
the ways that we structure
our working lives now consider that
original
retirement plans were designed to kick
in
when the average worker was dead
take the united states for example in
1935
social security was instituted for
eligible workers
when they turned 65. now at that point
life expectancy was 61.
so that the average worker was
already dead by the time he reached
retirement
now fast forward to the 1970s and there
was a convergence where
the average worker could expect to die
right around the time that he retired
now the average man can expect to live
an additional 15 years and for women
it’s more like 20 years
now another point to consider is that
original
retirement plans were designed
around the model of men’s work
experiences
and yet women tend to have different
work experiences from men
women are more likely at all stages in
the life course to
be caregivers they’re more likely to
work
part-time to enter the workforce later
to exit earlier to have lower
salaries and to have lower pensions if
they receive any pension
for their work and yet
in 99 of the world women
live longer than men
now around the world there’s a range of
different types of
retirement plans and different ages of
eligibility
but regardless of where you live
it’s in all of our interests to see that
women
have equitable access to education
and employment opportunities and
equitable salaries
and equitable pensions and workplace
protections
now that it’s 2020 it’s a good
time to think and to rethink
retirement so that we can provide
greater assistance to people whose
health has declined
to a point that working no longer works
and it’s a good time for us to create
more sensitive
and sophisticated ways to capture
mature workers knowledge and to retain
and retrain and to support mature
workers
to the extent that the interest in
continuing to work
is mutually beneficial
so now i want to share some strategies
with you
based on hundreds of interviews i’ve
done with people
about retirement and i want to share
some
specific examples from people who’ve
retired from
a range of different types of work
and the first strategy is that
preparation for retirement should
start early and often
and the first example that i want to
share
is alan allen was a doctor
who had married twice and he had five
children
two in his first marriage and three in
his second
allen claimed that his financial
obligations as a provider for his family
had prevented him from preparing for
retirement
mentally and his drive to stay focused
at work also got in the way
unfortunately alan worked
past his prime and was forced into
retirement
when he was in his 70s and his medical
license was revoked
and he was at a point where he had no
personal savings
alan’s story underscores the importance
of financial planning
and of taking the time and making the
mental space
to create a financial safety net
for yourself and another
one of the most important takeaways is
not just to prepare financially but to
prepare emotionally
for retirement don’t be afraid
to focus on what makes you curious
and on what brings you joy
elizabeth was a ceo who had
always thrived on being busy maybe some
of you can relate to that
her work had always brought her a sense
of purpose and she explained that when
she went through big work transitions
what helped her was focusing on
what sparked joy now
i’m not going to give you a marie condo
lesson in how to fold
but i will echo her advice
of simplifying organizing
and asking yourself what sparks joy
these ideas are important not just
to the rooms in your house but to your
finances
to your relationships and to your work
transitions the
third strategy that i want to share with
you is to practice
practicing is not just something that we
must do as kids
practicing is something that we must do
at all stages in life in order to
develop
skills and habits elite
athletes know better than anyone about
the importance of practicing
they must possess incredible
physical and mental energy
as well as the ability to focus on
a singular goal and to practice
in order to achieve that goal
alison was an olympic gymnast whose body
was left
wracked with pain and in her retirement
she had to adapt to the loss of
community
and companionship as she adapted to
retirement’s autonomy
and independence and what helped her
was practicing something new
as she adapted and took on new work
roles she explained
that practicing was something that
helped her
to get comfortable practicing was
something
that helped her get good
and the final strategy that i want to
share with you
is to recognize that work organizations
can create and shape
our identities for some people work is
more than a source of income work can
become
a source of personal identity
for some people who’ve always taken
their work seriously
or who feel like they were taken
seriously
because of the work they did retirement
can feel a lot like losing your
grounding
bob had worked for over five decades in
the private sector
and when i interviewed him in his
retirement he described
talking about his work and when he
talked about his work
he explained his heart was literally
fluttering
thinking about his work in his
retirement
he was constantly looking for some sort
of sign
that he was still needed and still
desirable for
some people for people whose work and
personal identities are closely
intertwined
retirement can feel a lot like
heartbreak
especially when it feels like there’s no
chance of getting your foot back in the
door
now i’m hoping that most of you have
never seen a pink slip before
it’s that piece of paper that lets you
know you’re being laid off
unfortunately evidence suggests
that many people who enter
into retirement do so and are forced to
do so
before they have a chance to choose
retirement
i’ve interviewed people who’ve described
feeling that
they’ve reached an expiration date based
on assumptions
that they were no longer capable of
being productive or creative
it’s important that we recognize that
we can’t always control the directions
that work organizations move in
but we can control the assumptions that
we make
about people and ultimately about
ourselves
based on traits like age
so this is my image of the future
where intergenerational work
environments
flourish where we invest
time and resources in personal
retirement savings strategies
and career transitions at all stages
where we are respectful of the
environment
and less wasteful and where we are
sustainable
in our working lives where exercise and
healthy movement are built
into our work environments so that we
are
healthy enough to work for as long
as we want to so
now i’m hoping that retirement feels
a little bit less like an old man
hunched over with a cane
and a bit less like a typewriter
and even a bit less like a day on the
beach
now that more of us are more likely to
make it
into later stages of adulthood
i’m hoping that you will take some time
to imagine how you will spend the last
few chapters
of your life thank you
you