megram - Index

megram - 55GTA - Index

Act Three
How boomers choose to retire — and work — and retire again
By Nancy Conroy
Philosophers have always talked about the three stages
of life. Baby boomers have decided that that isn’t
quite enough for them.They want to have four, and
that’s exactly what we are currently witnessing — the creation
of a brand new stage of life.The generations behind
will benefit from this new take on the life span and before
long philosophers will be writing about the four stages of
life. The new “third stage” seems to run from about 50 to
70 and is becoming a stage in life characterized by semiretirement.Although
some baby boomers will still opt for
classic retirement, the rest intend to combine leisure with
work for income.
There are several trends that have contributed to this
new way of thinking about our life span.
The average age of mortality keeps moving up. Right
now it is 82 for women and 76 for men.
Boomers are choosing to retire earlier than their parents
did.The average age is now 61.5.
Boomers report that they plan to retire and work. In a
recent survey by the Canadian Association of Retired
Persons (CARP), 62 per cent noted that they plan to work
beyond 60 and 35 per cent beyond 65.
The length of retirement in Canada has been increasing.Statistics
Canada says that Canadians are living,on average,
20 years after retiring.
Boomers are healthier, on average, than their parents
were.
September 2008 • 31 • Fifty-Five Plus Magazine
All of this adds up to a growing desire on the part of
boomer workers to improve their quality of life through
“retiring” from full-time work and moving to semi-retirement.
One Statistics Canada study found that almost 30 per
cent of those who retired between 1992 and 2002 indicated
they would have continued working had they been able
to move to part-time status. Roughly 7 in 10 pre-retirees
report that they intend to work, at least part-time, in retirement.
This attitude, coupled with the huge numbers of
baby boom retirees that are expected to leave full-time
work, is going to have an impressive and long-lasting effect
on how we view work and retirement. What follows are
some of the changes we have begun to witness.
We’re not OLD!
Traditionally, retirement was associated with later life
and old age. In other words, if you were retired, you must
be old. Leading edge boomers will simply not accept this
descriptor. They are in the process of redefining what
retirement means and the definition “old” just isn’t on the
table.So in magazines like Fifty-Five Plus we read about the
very active lives of retirees who are doing such things as
taking to the road on Harley Davidsons or going back to
university full-time or exploring new interests and cultures.
Modern retirees are choosing to continue to contribute to
their professions in retirement,to launch new businesses in
unprecedented numbers or to start new careers. The