‘RETIREMENT’ IS THE WRONG WORD TO DESCRIBE THE LIFESYLE OF MODERN SENIORS.
It is not realistic to finance a 30- year retirement with 30 years of work. You can’t expect to put 10% of your income aside and then finance a retirement that’s just as long. — John Shoven, Stanford University professor of economics
Today the word “retirement” is being widely misused and fails to describe exactly what life looks like for people in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond.
Retirement as we know it today did not exist prior to the industrialization of various Western democracies. People lived on farms just like on the television show The Waltons. Farmers didn’t retire, and the responsibility of older farmers was to pass on their knowledge and skills to the next generation. In return, the sons and daughters accepted the responsibility to provide care to the elderly, which was payback for the parents raising them. Life was a lot simpler back then.
Industrialization and the lure of a better life in cities resulted in people shifting from a life of self-sufficiency to a life of dependency on their employers. This shift came at a cost, as the new factory worker gave up a way of life that was in itself satisfying, trading a life where he was in control for a future where he would be a small cog in a large machine.
Along with industrialization came the eventual cre- ation of Social Security in the United States. Launched in 1935, Social Security was designed to support the older worker who, on average, didn’t have that many years left to live. The viability of Social Security counted on the assumption that the majority of retirees would die within a few years of starting retirement.
So everyone had the same goal: you worked hard for thirty- five years, and then, if you were one of the lucky ones to actually reach the finish line, you could finally stop working and enjoy a few years of passive leisure.
We use the term “passive leisure” here, as most people back then were not in robust enough health to partake in active leisure. So it’s easy to see why people would link “not working” to retirement, as it was the natural progression at the time: stop working = rocking chair. The literal definition of “retire” is to withdraw, to retreat, to shut oneself away. This definition was an appropriate fit for what was happening at that time.
Then a funny thing happened: people started to live longer. And they weren’t just living longer, they were also healthier and more active in those later years. Retirement is still a perfectly good word, but we need to rein in its usage now that its original meaning is no longer all that relevant. So the challenge now is to find a word that is more befitting to that period of time between when people leave their primary career and when they land in the proverbial rocking chair during their later years.
In his highly influential book first published in 1978, The Three Boxes of Life: And How to Get Out of Them, Richard N. Bolles described three life stages: education, work and retirement. Each of the three boxes Bolles described was a different size, relative to how the typical North American’s life was structured at the time the book was written. The biggest box was the work stage and the smallest was the third, based on the old definition of retirement, comprising people lucky enough to reach the artificial retirement finish line of 65. The reward for getting to the retirement box was being able to sit back and watch the world go by for a couple of years.
But instead of a retirement stage lasting a few years, we are now looking at a stage that could last as long as, or longer than, a person’s work stage. We think everyone would agree that’s way too long to spend in a rocking chair! And some might also argue 30 or 40 years is a long time to go without a paycheque.
To take into account the effect of increased longevity, it makes sense to insert a new box before the final one. We have chosen to call this new third stage “Victory Lap” in recognition of the increasingly common reality whereby people ( often corporate or government employees) who eventually achieve financial independence decide to pursue something more meaningful or, at least, choose to do the work they do differently.
People entering the Victory Lap stage are at a point when many of the primary responsibilities they once had have been eliminated or are down to greatly reduced and manageable levels. Achieving financial independence gives people an opportunity to decide what to do with their newfound freedom. People now have options — options they haven’t had for a very long time.
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED: PEOPLE STARTED TO LIVE LONGER.