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Baby Boomers Retire Retirement

The Financial Post, 3/5/08

Abstract:

Cecil Lawrence's friends tease him that he's crazy to work at his age. The 90-year-old glass salesman just laughs and suggests that they're even crazier to sit at home and watch soap operas...

...The lifelong workers still account for only 10 percent of their generation, but the proportion of Americans older than 70 who have "retired retirement" has edged up since the 1990s as people live longer, enjoy better health and hold less physically demanding jobs.

And the number will only increase with the baby boomers. Seventeen percent say they expect to work indefinitely, though financial necessity will be a bigger reason for their passing up Golden Pond, according to the MetLife Mature Marketing Institute...

...In the United States, older workers bear the burden of convincing businesses that they can remain productive, said William Zinke, a human resources executive who's created a non-profit group, the Center for Productive Longevity, to change employer attitudes.

"Although age discrimination is illegal, it exits far more than we'd like to think," he said.

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