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Are You Going to Stop Working?
Last night Kathy Adams, who leads Arlington Place of Oelwein, Iowa, an Ecumen-managed community, was elected to the school board in Oelwein. (Word is that Hillary wanted to meet a person in the heartland who represents America’s changing face of retirement.) Kathy is planning on retiring soon, but let’s get real, anyone who has met her knows she’s not really going to retire, she’s going to keep using her skills in building community. That school board job is going to be a lot of work. Kathy won’t be alone. Many others are joining her in redefining retirement.
Today Dave Phelps had an interesting front-page article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Retirement Age Doesn’t Mean 65.” According to his article, U.S. Census data shows:
- 23.2% of U.S. residents 65 to 74 are working.
- In Minnesota, that percentage is higher, 26.3 percent.
-Of Twin Cities residents in their late 60s and early 70s, more than one in four, or 27.4% are working.
-Among the top 20 largest metros in the U.S., only Washington D.C., Boston, and Dallas-Fort Worth are higher.
A lot of boomers don’t plan on retiring. We learned that in our Age Wave Study. Many of them also say they’re going to change jobs and do work that they enjoy. This is going to change the face of the workplace significantly, including different benefit structures, flexible scheduling, more entrepreneurial efforts and a whole host of other areas.
How do you view retirement? Are you going to have a traditional retirement and stop working, or will you continue working/do some work?
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 9:59 am and is filed under Age Wave, Changing Aging, Vital Successful Aging, baby boomers, human resources, public policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:21 am
I retired in March of 2007. I presently plan to work for as long as i can on the primary passion–alternatives in education. My cureent work is private consulting, development of an international center for the study of options, writing a new book on coordination between multiple community service organizations and schools, and teaching for several colleges.
September 13th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Raymond, you rock. Love stories like this. It’s amazing how much talent is going to be available. So glad that you’re sharing it.
October 4th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Is this Dr. Ray Morley from Des Moines, IA that I worked with in the Oelwein Community Schools through the School Based Youth Services program at the Husky Hub Center????
Good to see you are reading Ecumen’s webpage and keeping up! And also good that you wrote a letter of support in the Oelwein Register for my successful run of the school board seat. THANKS!
My best to you, Dr. Morley.
Kathy
And PS: After my Housing Manager’s position is filled here in Oelwein and I’m ‘retired,’ I will continue to market for the facility one day per week, serve on the school board, belong to clubs and organizations that I enjoy–it will still be very busy.