When Paul Ryan declared that along with his leadership, "I cannot and I will not give up my family time," he was also paving the way for the flexible work we are all demanding in our era of longevity. Our 21st century has brought life spans into our eighties, nineties and to 100 as a matter of course, which is also leading to new thinking and demands around how and how long we work. Twentieth century retirement at 60 or 65 with an additional 20-30 years of life is neither how to live nor what is fiscally sustainable. But it is neither desirable nor necessary that work in our sixties, seventies or eighties need be what it was in our thirties or forties. Nor, should work across our life course of 100 years be the same as it was in 20th century industrial America. Working moms have long been practitioners and advocates of innovative working careers; now those who want and/or need to continue to work well past 20th century retirement norms join in. And the third most powerful leader in America is saying the same thing about his culture of work, which we can be confident will be at least as demanding as Tip O'Neill or John Boehner, just different.
Different is huge, though!
It's those differences brought about by the combination of our longevity and the aging of our population, where we are turning on its head the very structure of society to one of more old than young and therefore requiring transformations in culture, institutions and public policies. Nor are we alone in this new world as the data from such venerable institutions as Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, to Aegon clearly confirm that people everywhere across the globe are working both longer and differently. If flexible work for Congressman Paul Ryan is the condition of the job, that's also true for the growing number of us over 60 who want to continue to work, but differently, more flexibly. The data is powerful and clear: close to a third of the 16,000 surveyed in the Global Aegon Retirement Readiness Survey, across all generations believed they would start part-time work before giving up work altogether, and almost one-fifth said they would work part-time through their retirement years. Moreover, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch data, "pre-retirees want to work into what we today call retirement to stay mentally active (51 percent) and physically active (46 percent), earn money (51 percent), maintain social connections (32 percent) and have new challenges (28 percent)."
And it is in this environment that we can hope to keep more of us active and healthy that will lead to the economic growth society expects as well as the "side benefit" of a healthier aging itself, which we know comes from activity, including work.
Of course, Congressman Ryan has been both intuitive and analytical about understanding the profound character of how our 21st century demographics - more old than young - demands creative and innovative approaches not only to work, but other key areas like health policy. If our definition of work is changing, so is our understanding of Medicare, where saving it will require it becoming something different than when it was invented 50 years ago where the proportion of young was profoundly different than today.
And, it might not be so coincidental that one of the most prominent of global NGOs, the World Economic Forum, will be launching this coming week "Age-Friendly Business Principles": How 21st Century Longevity Can Create Markets and Drive Economic Growth that have a core feature the need for different and more flexible work to align with 21st century aging populations. As the Congressman leads us not only in our public policy challenges, but in the sort of values that align with 21st century demographic realities, he is joined by a global chorus of those who understand this demographic transformation.