Retirement Redefined

Retirement Redefined

They're living longer; They're more active; They're engaged; They're not their parents.

As the largest generation in American history enters its golder years, Baby Boomers find themselves rethinking the whole concept of retirement.

Forty years after Woodstock, the youth of the Baby Boom generation that once belted out “I hope I die before I get old” are currently facing retirement square in the eye.

These Baby Boomers, all 79 million of them born between 1946 and 1964, are skidding closer and closer to that age when they are expected to ride into the sunset. The oldest of the Boomers turned 62 this year and became eligible to collect partial Social Security benefits.

Groups like AARP and the National Council on Aging, as well as local organizations and government, are trying to figure out what the future will look like as the largest generation in history retires. That’s a question especially important in an economy with dwindling financial security and more foreclosed houses accumulating each day.

But a better question to ask might be what does it mean to be retired?

“Right now, we’re looking for a changing definition of the word retirement,” said Lucy de Haan, a spokesperson for the New York office of AARP. De Haan says that “2011 will be the year that the first Baby Boomers turn 65 and begin collecting full Social Security. Our studies tell us that they won’t be retiring in at all the way we’ve come to think of it.”

There are a whole batch of issues that are raised by this new type of senior — in some cases one that cannot afford to retire, in other cases one that has accumulated wealth but still wishes to stay connected to the workplace, and in some cases both.

“As Madison Avenue sells the concept of the Baby Boom generation with all this money, if we look at the actual demographics it’s quite different,” said Susan Stamler, the director of policy and advocacy at United Neighborhood Houses of New York (UNH). Stamler deals with the reality of aging for many people who are not financially secure as they age and need both housing and social services, a segment of the population that will spike along with millions of Boomers marching toward the so-called “golden years.”

“Many of [the Boomers] will be poor, or living with a limited income,” Stamler said. “And there will be those that will want to stay involved in the workplace, whether it’s paid or not. It is very hard to paint older adults. We have so much delineation of people in their youth, before 20, and then after they turn 60. But there’s 40 years in there and we don’t really delineate it. So we need to remember that this isn’t a monolithic community.”

The oft-overlooked population of the aging Baby Boomer demographic are those that will need to depend on public housing and on city senior centers that have already suffered funding cuts nationally in the past six years. Cuts to such centers have particularly affected seniors in New York City. City Councilmember Maria del Carmen Arroyo, from District 17 in the Bronx, chairs the City Council Committee on Aging, and she has been frank about the inadequacies in the city’s facilities for seniors that will be exposed when many of the largest age group in history begin to need them.

“Our senior centers have not been revamped since the early 1970s,” Arroyo said. “Baby Boomers, in particular, will be expecting a different level of service. I’m concerned that we won’t be able to meet those demands. I mean, these people are looking for more than bingo and a hot meal.”

Arroyo pointed to the completely different world that Boomers have worked in — one with rising levels of responsibility for aging employees, as well as computer and Internet literacy. “[Boomers] are involved in the workplace at a higher level of technology,” Arroyo said.

The New York City Department for the Aging recently released a concept paper concerning the modernization of services. Chris Miller, a spokesperson for DFTA, described the questions that his organization has begun to ask in their concept paper and are continuing to investigate.

“We’re looking at our three core services,” Miller said. “There is our individual case management, our food distribution service and our senior centers. How do we prepare all of them for the seniors of tomorrow? To help do that we are partnering with ReServe.”

ReServe is an organization that connects experienced older adults with stipend-paying jobs that challenge them to use their lifetime skills for the public good. ReServe brings a passion not only for the need to assist senior citizens, but for the importance of listening to and respecting an aging point of view in the workplace. The organization brings a philosophy of “social engagement,” placing older adults into vital, paying positions at non-profit and public agencies. By tapping into ReServe’s philosophy and the network of groups that they have been working with since their inception in 2005, DFTA is taking steps toward redefining the potential of New York City’s older adults. (Read more about ReServe on Page 28.)

“We are allowing our new seniors to give back to the city,” Miller continued. “It is not traditional volunteering or work. We allow for a flexible schedule — our seniors aren’t working 40 hours a week.”

The nuances of where “social engagement” fits in the spectrum of full time employment and volunteer service are being worked out by other organizations within New York and throughout the nation.

“A lot of Boomers are looking for new ways to take their knowledge and give back,” said AARP’s de Haan. “Consulting is one option, maybe starting a business. A lot of people might want to move into a type of work that they’ve never had the option to try. Now the kids are out of the house, they will redefine what we’ve typically termed ‘retirement.’”

Programs similar to AARP’s are sprouting up in other organizations throughout New York City. UNH, which controls 35 agencies and 400 sites dedicated to improve housing and social services throughout the city, is focusing a lot of its attention on the changing tides of aging.

“It’s thinking about utilizing older adults in a new way,” said Monica Serrano, senior project manager and colleague of Stamler’s at UNH. Funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, UNH is part of the New York City portion of a pilot program geared toward finding new ways for this newest aging generation to connect to their environment in innovative ways.

“Last year was an assessment phase — how are people connecting, are there barriers, that sort of thing,” Serrano said. “Another aspect is continuing education, specifically training opportunities for older adults to move into new fields. Finally, there is the advocacy phase. How do we change policy in the right way for these new older adults?”

To be sure, many of the Boomers that will move into new fields or will continue to earn money by consulting as they age will not have the option to retire with the same ease and security as their parents may have had. But part of rethinking retirement is changing the traditional thought process that would define such responsibilities as less than ideal. In fact, many researchers are pointing to continued workplace interaction as not a mere product of a rising life expectancy that needs to be supported, but a cause of it, as well.

Dr. John Beard is the senior episte mologist at the New York Academy of Medicine and focuses most of his research on creating a successful life model for productive aging. He thinks that any city that can produce the most responsibility, stimulus, and overall interaction for its seniors is keeping them healthy and alive.

“We should think about how to help people live a productive life as they age,” Beard emphasized. “Increasingly, people want to work, want to be productive, want to be tuned in.”

Beard is part of a new initiative run by the Academy, together with the Mayor’s Office and the New York City Council, called Age-Friendly NYC. Beard and his colleagues are dedicated to updating New York City to make it an overall environment that fosters engaged, longer-living seniors.

“We are doing studies, now, where we’ve followed people over a couple of years and found that mental and physical health, like a person’s weight, are affected in the environment around them,” Beard explained. “If you live in an affluent neighborhood, no matter how much you yourself earn, you’re better off. As you are if you’re near a bus stop and can move around — anything where an older person is encouraged to be out and about and engaged.”

Working, or even passionate volunteerism, fits into the model that Beard is describing of a city in which people do not have to feel disconnected nor isolated as they grow older. This potential for activity does not only do the mind good, but can also transform the traditional view of a physical timeline of aging.

“Evidence is growing that if you remain significantly active there doesn’t need to be much decline at all in physical health and body functions,” Beard said. “If we design our city right and encourage our seniors to stay active, health should hold up until the very last years of life.”

Baby Boomers have shown, for the most part, to be the generation most suited to this model of continued activity and connection. As Councilmember Arroyo emphasized, this is a new generation of people that has been engaged in different ways than its predecessors.

“We have seen that Boomers have different characteristics from previous generations,” said Tom Endres, vice president for civic engagement at the National Council on Aging (NCOA), in Washington D.C. “They always want to be involved; they are very conscious. One example is that people are much more conscious about their time being used well. [Boomers] will not continue to volunteer at activities if they feel like their time or expertise isn’t being used well, if their tasks don’t have meaning. They want to be really brought into the organization that they work with later in life. This will inevitably have a big impact on the workplace.”

NCOA is working to ease companies into the new workplace that Endres sees as inevitable as the Baby Boomers turn 65 and older. The most important idea, according to Endres, is that companies realize that they are making necessary changes to maximize what could be a huge, mature and heavily experienced pool of employees.

“We manage a work force program designed to support low-maintenance aging people moving into unsubsidized jobs,” Endres said. “We’ve just received a grant to remove some income restrictions. We’re looking at training for positions like nursing and pharmacy assistants. There is a major shift in attitude and policy going on regarding aging. Obviously, resources have still been focused on providing services to the elderly in need, but now there is a new dimension. At the same time as we care for people, we also have an aging asset potential that we have never had before.”

Endres says that, through NCOA’s work force program, companies throughout the nation are realizing the benefit of turning the rapidly growing aging community from an assumed collection of retirees to a vital part of the workplace. There are, Endres pointed out, nearly 10,000 people a day turning 65. With so many of them healthy and passionate to stay involved, why shouldn’t corporations pay for their expertise? The management of NCOA encompasses 22 model programs around the country that connect willing companies with elder adults. NCOA is studying the progress in their model programs — what are the roles that seniors are taking within the companies? What part of the traditional office culture and expectations must change for them?

“We are also looking at whether or not the organization leaders are responding to tapping into this huge resource,” Endres continued. “Or are they still stuck in an old paradigm? Are they inclined to think, ‘These are volunteers, you can’t depend on them.’ That’s why we say, ‘civic engagement.’ It’s a redefinition of what to expect. At the end of our research, we will provide the companies a return on their investment, and we will compile hard, convincing data from our program. Anecdotal stories aren’t enough.”

In a struggling economy with shrinking security, economists see minimal possibility for any conventional retirement.

“Many people have not saved enough,” said Professor Sharon DeVaney, from her office at Purdue University, where her she focuses her research on trends in retirement planning. “And most are not well-enough informed about Social Security. For instance, if you withdraw from your Social Security at 62, the earliest possible age, your benefits go down. If somebody continues to work until 70 and then collect, they get the maximum benefits. With this generation staying healthier for longer, why would you want to quit at 55 or 60?”

But then there are the revolutionary ways in which the masses of aging Baby Boomers can counteract the very social and economic strains that many fear their numbers will bring. One issue where this necessity of balance is exemplified is the potential for a spike in Alzheimer’s cases.

Jed Levine, executive vice president of the New York chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association said, “There are roughly 5.2 million people with Alzheimer’s in America right now and we estimate that there could be 11-16 million by 2050. We are trying to mobilize Baby Boomers — help them help us. This is a group that has historically been activists. They are also the first generation to see some of their parents stricken by Alzheimer’s. We think we can mobilize that energy.”

Like Councilmember Arroyo and economist DeVaney, Levine is quick to acknowledge the strain that the aging of Baby Boomers will place on his area of focus, saying, “This is something that could overwhelm health care, Medicare, Medicaid — the cost of care is very prohibitive.” But he sees the activism of the generation as something that can perhaps defend its own from the disastrous Alzheimer’s effects that we see now.

Most experts agree that there will be many people who, whether they cannot retire or do not want to, will continue to be a large force in corporations, non-profits and social movements. Baby Boomers are expected to change the way all that come after them will see the word “retire.”