When playwright Michael Frayne was interviewed about "Copenhagen," his critically acclaimed play, he had this to say: "The last few years seem to be quite fertile. From the age of 65 it all gets better as you go along." He was 75 at the time.
Today, working through our sixties still seems unnatural and carrying on into our seventies positively outré. But soon, according to the World Health Organization, holding a job on our 100th birthday won't be unusual. John Beard, director of the WHO's department of aging and the life course, says that most people born in developed countries today can expect to live well past 100, with the onset of disabling illness delayed close to the end of life. "This means that we'll be working into our seventies, eighties, nineties, and beyond," he says.
Sound far-fetched? It's already beginning to happen. According to the RAND Corporation, 17 percent of older American men and women (ages 65 to 75) were in the workforce in 1990; today, this statistic has risen to 25 percent. A significant jump in employment among those over 75 was also seen. And RAND researchers project a sharp increase in both numbers in the next decade.
Jerry Morris is a sign of things to come. Just after World War II, British researchers noticed that people were having heart attacks in record numbers. As a scientist, he set up an extensive study to examine heart attack rates in different occupations. The first results showed a striking difference in busmen: sedentary drivers were more than twice as likely to die of a heart attack as the conductors who went up and down 500 steps a day.
Jerry had stumbled on a great truth -- exercise helps you live longer. It certainly worked for him: he exercised regularly all his life and, at 101, still made his way each day to his office at the London School of Hygiene and Medicine. And this wasn't simply putting in time: Jerry continued to lobby government to encourage people to take up regular exercise. (Sadly, Jerry passed away last year, but not before he learned that the story about him in the Financial Times of London was one of the ten most popular features of the year.)
Research for my new book, "RIPE," has unearthed all kinds of older people doing their thing, blissfully unaware that they "should" have retired long ago. German ceramicist Eva Zeisel, 104, said it best: "What do you mean 'still'? I'm working!"
Doris McCarthy is one of my favourite examples. Doris bloomed late. Though she had been making art since her youth, it wasn't until her retirement from teaching at 62 that she took up her life's work, becoming one of Canada's most renowned artists, with works in public and private collections around the world. But first she had to overcome some powerful social conditioning. "When I retired from teaching I thought that the next major event of my life would be dying," she said. "There was no imagining that the best years were still ahead of me."
When I was in my mid-forties and Doris McCarthy had just entered her ninth decade, I went to one of her openings. As the artist and I stood together in front of an oil painting of an iceberg that she had made while on a recent trip to the Arctic, I asked how long it had taken to make it. "A lifetime," she said. This summer, she celebrated her 100th birthday, and, yes, shes is "still" painting.
"RIPE" will definitely include stories of men and women who work long, long, long after the traditional retirement age, for all kinds of reasons and in all kinds of ways. What's your plan for the years after 50? And what would you like my book to include -- what would make it really useful to you, and to the people you love who really need inspiration and help? Please share by commenting below, or feel free to contact me via my website.
AARP resource. These good folks reached out to me this week, because they want to help women think ahead. Check out "Decide, Create, Share," their new public awareness program designed to help increase awareness of the importance of planning for the future. They've created a series of resources -- easy, free, practical tips that women can use to stay on track. There are clips from boomers like us, too.
Great TV. "Where Did I Put... My Memory?" is a smart and funny documentary about, oh, I forget. From the creative minds of Josh Freed and Barbara Doran, this is not to be missed.
Julia Moulden is an author, speaker, and columnist.
Read Julia Moulden's HuffPost archive, including the first columns about "RIPE."
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Loretta LaRoche: Why We Should Embrace Our Age
Julia Moulden: What Are the Seven Wonders of YOUR World?
If neither of my comments is published, I will give up and stop reading Huff Po. Censorship and the First Amendment are very important to me. I can follow-up on the issue I am having here -- elsewhere.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05082009/profile2.html
Bill Moyers Journal . Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot | PBS
"Bill Moyers speaks with Lawrence-Lightfoot, one of America's leading educators and author of THE THIRD CHAPTER: PASSION, RISK, AND ADVENTURE IN THE 25 YEARS AFTER 50. Lawrence-Lightfoot envisions a much needed cultural shift in our attitudes toward youth and age — a need based on simple demographics. People are living longer and remaining engaged and vital — about 76 million Americans are now in what Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot has dubbed "the third chapter" of life.
"All of us at this point, to some degree, are on a search for meaningfulness, for purposefulness. And we want to find what this next 25 years, this penultimate chapter of our life, is going to be about. And we're ready for something new. For a new experience. For a new adventure. And I think all of us, to some degree, experience some burnout. Burnout is not about working too hard. Or working too diligently or being over committed. Burnout is about boredom. And so, I think in some ways this is about sort of moving beyond the boredom to compose, to invent and reinvent the path that we're on..."
Like most people, I want to leave the world a better place than it was when I was born.
And so "Old Tulsan" -- go for it! I look forward to my old age and future chapters, as well.
Like Julia says, continuing to work isn't for everyone. Go ahead and retire if you want, but don't lament the demise of society based solely on your experiences or the alarmist media. I want to keep working for a long long time because I need to stay active and I need to keep learning. Kids will find jobs - don't forget there's fewer of them than us boomers, they just may not land their dream job first. But with the glass half full, some concerted effort (remember, work is hard...) and the right decisions, we'll all be okay.
Look at the bright side, there is one you know, and keep on ripening. Go Julia go!!!
That's the question.
That does not a demographic make.
It would be nice to be able to work late in life at something one loves, but sadly that will not be the future of so may older Americans after the Great Recession.
Let's put our cards on the table.
Are you implying that the Social Security retirement age should be raised past 67?
People you're looking for excuses. I do not think Doris McCarthy was a wealthy school teacher. She didn't allow her age to stop her passion which was to paint. (btw I looked her up - I love her work.)
2. People are not living longer, more people are living to their full age.
3. We are living longer but we are not healthier, other than improved lifestyle. Medicine has done nothing to slow aging, just manages to keep us alive longer.
4. Obesity has increased dramatically, now 30% among the young. The obese will not be able to work to an old age, and longevity is likely to decrease.
Give young people an opportunity to work.
Its ridiculous, students are staying in school till near age 30 and even then can't find employment.
I'm doing my part. I was a high-tech R&D software engineer, was old at age 50, it's a young occupation. I'm 60, retired five years ago, love it ... :-) They myth is that those who keep working are helping out, doing society a favor. You got it right, better to step aside, make room for my two 20-something sons.
Longevity is directly related to socioeconomic status: the rich live longer, probably because of reduced stress. Work as such does not make us live longer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
Jeanne Louise Calment had the longest confirmed human life span in history, living 122 years and 164 days.
She ascribed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age to olive oil, which she said she poured on all her food and rubbed onto her skin, as well as a diet of port wine, and ate nearly one kilo of chocolate every week.
Define toil as work not freely chosen, no matter how simple. Work we choose, no matter how difficult, falls under the psychological category of play. We tend to work long hours without complaint at work we love.
We can encourage efforts to gradually reduce the time people spend -- at work not chosen -- to twenty hours weekly. Money displaced from the nominal forty hour week will need to be replaced with sound, diversified, investment income that is not dependent upon savings. Difficult as this may be to accomplish, it can be done.
Most people are trapped by mortgage payments, car payments, etc., in jobs they do not love. There is a simple test: Would they continue to do the same work without pay?
Only a few fortunate individuals have the freedom to learn who they are, and more important, who they might become, given the time for both spiritual reflection and inner growth, as well as genuine opportunities to prosper.
The late Louis Kelso devoted decades to seeking ways to develop practical paths for half of average American incomes to be received from investments - that are not necessarily derived from savings. See the Center for Economic and Social Justice www.cesj.org for the continuation of his work.
The reason: work generates corporate profit, which goes to investors, the hereditary rich. Wages are like prices, follow supply and demand. The more workers, the lower the wages. The more college graduates, the greater the supply, the less they will be paid, and that happened under Bush, their starting salaries fell.
If a mother goes to work instead of staying home, pays daycare instead, her family doesn't benefit but corporate profits do: both make money, spend more. The push for economic growth is really aimed at increased corporate profits and returns for investors.
This is a capitalist society, run for the benefit of those with capital. Its purpose is to support the idle rich, our own royals. As long as that is true we will continue to work harder and longer.