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Retiring Retirement: The Rise of Life's Third Age
IN THE FIRST chapter of James Michener's captivating 1959 book Hawaii, he talks about how for millions of years, large tectonic plates were slowly moving and grinding against each other far below the sea that we now call the Pacific Ocean. As these forces converged, masses of land started to rise up from those plates and ultimately surfaced as beautiful Polynesia.
And so it is with the future of retirement. For thousands of years, medical, economic, social, and demographic forces have been shifting and often grinding against each other. From this interplay a new stage of life has been emerging and morphing.
Earlier in our book, we reviewed the modern history of retirement. During what we've called the first era, which lasted throughout history until the early twentieth century, retirement was for all intents and purposes nonexistent. People worked throughout their relatively short lives and they worked until they died.
Then in the 1930s, with economic disruptions and profound shifts in demography and sociology, a second era of retirement emerged. In this one, the safety nets such as Social Security were created and, at the same time, a new point of view took root that suggested that older men and women would be happier if they stopped working and, by so doing, made room for the young.
By the 1970s, employer pensions had proliferated, as did guaranteed health benefits, with Medicare front and center. Longevity was steadily increasing, as was the financial well-being of retirees. So retirement-focused leisure industries began popping up from senior housing to cruise excursions. This new version of retirement looked delightful and appeared to be a very good arrangement for a couple of generations of retirees.
With today's demographic liberations and pressures, retirement has become far more lengthy and more complex. Worldwide, nearly a billion people are in or near retirement and there are many more options and opportunities for how to spend this newfound time affluence. However, in many parts of the world and in many communities, there is both more longevity and far less financial security, which necessitates far more reliance on oneself and one's family – something for which most are unprepared.
Should we be calling this new stage of life the “fourth era of retirement”? In 2004, we wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review titled “It's Time to Retire Retirement,” for which we were proud to earn the McKinsey Award (tied with the legendary Peter Drucker). Clearly we believe the word “retirement” is reaching the end of its line. It's far too small and narrow for what is now emerging. Its positive connotations – freedom, leisure – tell only part of the story. Its negative connotations – withdrawal, decline – are increasingly problematic. The words “retirement” and “retiree” will most likely linger for another decade or so, but their meanings will evolve as the lifescape of retirement keeps expanding, disaggregating, and diversifying.
We believe it's time to re-identify the “Lifestage Formerly Known as Retirement” to mean something far bigger and worthy of a new name.
The Third Age: Life's New Frontier
It is from outside the realm of traditional psychology that we find a pivotal perspective on the new possibilities – and lexicon – of maturity. A compelling philosophy has emerged from the European tradition of adult education that provides a simple yet visionary orientation. Referred to as “Le troisième âge” – the third age – this point of view has three “ages” of man, each with its own special focus, challenge, and opportunity.
In the first age, from birth to approximately 30 years of age, the primary tasks of life center around biological development, learning, and survival. During the early years of history, the average life expectancy of most men and women wasn't much higher than the end of the first age, and as a result the entire thrust of society itself was oriented toward these most basic drives.
In the second age, from about 30 to 60, the concerns of adult life focus on issues pertaining to the formation of family, parenting, and productive work. The years taken up by the second age are very busy and filled with social activity; the lessons gathered during the first age are applied to the social and professional responsibilities of the second. Until the last century, most people couldn't expect to live much beyond the second age, and society at that time was thus centered on the concerns of this age.
However, with the rise in longevity and the coming of the age wave, a new era of human evolution is unfolding, the third age. There are new purposes to this third age of life. First, with the children grown and many of life's basic adult tasks either well under way or already accomplished, this less pressured, more reflective period allows the further development of the interior life of the intellect, memory, imagination, of emotional maturity, and of one's own personal sense of spiritual identity. This is akin to Erik Erikson's concept of the achievement of ego integrity and to Abraham Maslow's concept of self-actualization.
The third age has another dimension: there's plenty of time and opportunity to try new things. Not just to be reflective but to explore new facets of life. Not just to relax in front of the TV but to seek out new transformative adventures. Not just to share wisdom but to contribute directly to society in new ways. Not just “retire,” but maybe have an encore career, another modified go-round of life's second age. The third age is now full of potential for individuals, families, and society. The scope of this potential is enormous and unprecedented. And from this perspective, modern elders are seen not as social outcasts, but as a living bridge between yesterday, today, and tomorrow – a critical evolutionary role that no other age group can perform. According to Monsignor Charles Fahey, the Founding Director of Fordham's Third Age Center, “People in the third age should be the glue of society, not its ashes.”
Of course, this is not an entirely new or novel perspective, just one that years of youth-focus have obscured. In other cultures, and at other times, elders have been revered for their wisdom, power, and spiritual force. In ancient China, for example, the highest attainment in mystical Taoism was long life and the wisdom that came with the passing of years. According to social theorist Simone de Beauvoir in her classic The Coming of Age, “Lao Tzu's teaching sets the age of sixty as the moment at which a man may free himself from his body and become a holy being…. Old age was therefore life in its very highest form.” Among the Aranda, hunters and gatherers of the Australian forests, old age brings with it a transition to near-supernatural status. De Beauvoir writes: “The man whom age has already brought close to the other world is the best mediator between this and the next. It is the old people who direct the Aranda's religious life – a life that underlies the whole of their social existence.”
A Glimpse into the Future
Throughout this book, we've attempted to share some of the enormous variety of retirees in every facet of life – work, leisure, health, family, home, finances, purpose. Tomorrow's elders won't be one big homogeneous group. One-size-fits-all products, services, and marketing will fail. We can, nonetheless, step back and anticipate what will be different in tomorrow's Third Age.
More Learning
There will be more learning and more of the personal development, fulfillment, and untapping of potential that goes with it. Paul Irving makes an eloquent case for lifelong learning: “While I'm an advocate for education across our lives, the old adage about education being wasted on the young is to an extent true. We should all go back to school at some point later in life. There's something magic about being on a campus. It starts with feeding intellectual curiosity, challenging oneself, and realizing the joy of learning. Then there's the opportunity to reinvent, reskill, update. Continuing one's productivity requires lifelong learning. And returning to school can be a huge confidence builder – confidence both in what you know and in how much you can learn.”
Paul himself went back to school. After a successful career serving in and leading a major law firm, he applied and was accepted as a fellow at Harvard's Advanced Leadership Initiative for experienced leaders. The latest act of his career, in his third age, includes chairing the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging. When we asked him to elaborate on why he shifted gears, he said, “While I loved my time as a lawyer, I felt that there was something else ahead. It was a sense that I wasn't done. Part of it was love of learning and challenge. I've long been an advocate of lifelong learning. I think democratizing learning, spreading and scaling up opportunities for people to learn throughout life, just couldn't be a more important priority. Wise and knowledgeable populations will distinguish countries and societies in the decades to come. Those countries that figure out ways to reeducate, reskill, and continue to challenge and engage their older populations are the countries that will succeed.”
More Intergenerational Contribution
Intergenerational connection and contribution will go far beyond Boomers making donations, volunteering, and leaving personal and financial legacies – important though they are. Encore.org founder and CEO Marc Freedman reflects: “We need to create more and more opportunities for people to find encores later in life in roles that give back and benefit society. One of the most beautiful ways we can experience purpose in this phase of life is by forming deep connections that nurture the next generation. In the process, we not only alleviate social isolation and loneliness among older people, but also provide a deep sense of living a worthwhile life.”
Fernando Torres-Gil puts things in perspective: “We hear how great it can be to grow old and be independent and do whatever you want. That's a good thing. However, the way I see it, the real ideal is interdependence, because we're all going to need each other at some point, and none of us will ever grow old and be truly independent.”
More Activism
We recounted some of Ken's adventures with Maggie Kuhn – visionary, author, founder of the Gray Panthers – in Chapter 3. Her third age career was activism on behalf of both youth and age. In 1978, Ken was interviewing her for New Age Magazine and she told him: “We're the elders of the tribe, and the elders are charged with the tribe's survival and well-being. We who are older have enormous freedom to speak out, and equally great responsibility to take the risks that are needed to heal and humanize our sick society. We can and should try new things and take on entirely new roles.”
She went on to list what she thought were the most important of those roles: Testing new lifestyles, including living in more cooperative modes. Building new coalitions across ethnicities and economic conditions, because age is a universal. Serving as watchdogs of public bodies and guardians of the public interest. Advocating for consumer rights and blowing the whistle on fraud and corruption. Monitoring corporate power and responsibility on behalf of workers and society. In short, using the power of wisdom and experience and attention to assess society, heal what ails it, and plan for its future. Maggie's challenge and agenda were and remain ambitious – but they seem to be even more relevant and needed today than when she outlined them decades ago.
A Great Age?
Will the Boomers use their experience and assets to help shape a future based on mindfulness and generosity of spirit? Or will they act only to promote their own interests #OKBoomer-style? If we are to live longer, on average, than humans have ever lived before, and if the global center of gravity is to shift from youth to age, should this be regarded as good news or bad? As we have seen, the answer is, “It depends.” It depends on whether or not we can:
- Uproot the ageism and gerontophobia that cloud our hopes for the future and replace them with a new, more positive image of aging
- Replace the limiting confines of the linear life plan with a flexible, cyclic plan – with periods of education, work, and leisure throughout life – much more appropriate to the shifting needs of a longer life
- Create a new spectrum of family relationships that are matched to the companionship, sexuality, friendship, and caregiving needs of older adults
- Discover ways to grow old well, in the absence of debilitating illness, and especially the diseases of the aging brain such as Alzheimer's
- Create products, services, housing, and programs that will treat older men and women with respect and provide comfort, convenience, pleasure, peak experiences, and purpose
- Foster a new era of cooperation and interdependence among people of all ages while creating a social system that is fair and equitable for everyone
Time's Up
Dr. Robert Butler coined the terms “ageism” and “gerontophobia” in the late 1960s. Maggie Kuhn founded the Gray Panthers in 1970. Pat Moore published Disguised, recounting her experience passing – and being disrespected and mistreated – as an old lady in 1985. Ken published Age Wave in 1989. Betty Friedan published The Fountain of Age in 1993. Mary Furlong founded Third Age Media in 1996.
The destructive problems of ageism, the impacts of the age wave, the necessity to reframe aging – these are not “breaking” news. Very capable people, including many whom we interviewed for this book, have been working and making progress on these issues for a long time, both battling ageism and guiding government groups, organizations, and companies to be better prepared for the demographically driven changes to come. What's different today? Why this book now? Because about half of the massive Boomer generation are now “retired.” The cohort that proclaimed “never trust anyone over 30” will soon all be over 60. The age wave is no longer coming. It's here, and it's the future. By 2050, there will be more than two billion people over the age of 60 worldwide.
A few years ago, when we interviewed renowned psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman, PhD, he reflected, “The legacy of the Boomer generation won't be the ‘me first’ image of their early years, but rather the potential huge surge in volunteerism that might characterize their later years. It's not how you begin the act, it's how you leave the stage that people remember.”
It's time to write the next act – about reframing aging and enabling people to thrive in the Third Age.