Marc Freedman wants to abolish retirement as you know it
Print this pagePosted on 02 April 2008 by Mark
Permanent URL of this article: http://retirementrevised.com/column/marc-freedman-wants-to-abolish-retirement-as-you-know-it
There’s no shortage of bad news about aging and retirement. Whether it’s ballooning Social Security and Medicare payments or the brain drain of millions of baby boomers leaving the workforce, the headlines all seem to focus on the increasing burdens of an aging population.
There’s not much we can do about aging; we’re all doing it. But retirement? That’s an idea that could be headed for the dustbin-if Marc Freedman has anything to say about it.
“For the last half century, we’ve had a cultural vision of success in later life that focused on liberation from work,” says Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, a think tank focused on engaging older adults.
That vision may have outlived its time-the result of financial need, expected labor shortages in certain areas of the workforce, and greater longevity. What’s coming, Freedman thinks, will be longer working lives. The question is, working at what?
Freedman’s answer: Create opportunities for older adults to start new careers-paid or volunteer-that allow them to make a positive social contribution in later life.
A national community has sprung up around this notion of “civic engagement” and Freedman’s organization is, in many ways, at the hub. Civic Ventures has developed innovative programs like the Purpose Prize, a cash award given annually to social innovators over age 60. CV also funds innovative career re-training programs at community colleges around the country.
Freedman co-founded a large non-profit national service program called the Experience Corps that preceded Civic Ventures, He also wrote Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life (PublicAffairs Books, June 2007). The book focuses on how pathways can be created to help people transition into what he calls Encore careers.
Civic Ventures recently launched a free online community, Encore.org, offering resources for career transitions.
“We want to help people make transitions into particular areas where there is a powerful need for people-areas like education, health, government and the non-profit arena,” says Freedman.
Continued work, whether for pay or on a volunteer basis, is a win-win proposition, Freedman argues. It promotes individual well-being-especially in a rocky economy that threatens retirement portfolios and housing values.
“It starts with the bread-and-butter issues of income if people can genuinely get greater security with well-paying positions that have benefits,” he notes. “Beyond that, we need to sell the idea of using the experiences you’ve had-that what you learn in life still matters-not just for yourself but also for the well-being of future generations.
Workers over 55 will be the fastest-growing segment of the labor force in the next decade, so the potential impact is not insignificant. “We need to acknowledge that it’s not just a few people we’re talking about, but tens of millions making this transition,” says Freedman. “We need something like what we did with the GI bill.”
The pent-up energy among boomers eager to re-focus on work that will leave a positive legacy is palpable. I sense it all the time in casual conversations with adults in their 50s, and surveys offer further evidence. A recent survey Civic Ventures helped sponsor found that over half of adults age 50 to 70 want to find ways to “contribute to the greater good” in retirement.
The starting point, Freedman says, is helping people with an instinct for new careers explore their options.
“We need to help people recognize they aren’t alone-that they’re part of a broader emerging movement,” he says. What’s more, he notes, opportunities are opening up in a number of key “helping” professions, including math and science teaching, nursing and non-profit management.
There’s also a lot of ferment in higher education, with many colleges and universities creating new approaches focused on encore careers. Freedman is especially interested in the opportunity presented by the huge number of community colleges. Civic Ventures’ pilot project at 10 such colleges will help develop expedited career re-training programs for boomers.
Freedman also advocates a new “social compact” between government and boomers: Fiscal and financial assistance would come in return for longer working lives in areas of high social need. That might include eliminating taxation of Social Security benefits to make the benefit more valuable, and plugging the “Medicare gap” years by making it possible for people in their 50s to buy into Medicare.
“We need to offer a deal for longer working lives that people would embrace-incentives that would get people looking forward to this stage of work not just to make ends meet but to be meaningfully engaged and use their experiences in ways they can be proud of,” he says.
Interested in learning more? Check out my list below of key resources you can use to research your own encore career. The list is by no means complete; feel free to post your own suggestions as comments at the bottom of this page.
RESOURCES
Bridgestar is a reource organization for non-profit groups and individuals interested in making a transition from for-profit to non-profit work. The focus is on management-level positions.
CommonGood Careers is a resource for employers and job seekers in the world of social entrepreneurship.
Experience Corps recruits adults over age 55 to mentor and tutor elementary students, with a focus on developing reading skills.
Idealist.org offers job postings in a wide array of non-profit jobs and volunteer opportunities all over the world.
EncoreCareers.org is a new online community launched by Civic Ventures around the themes contained in Marc Freedman’s book, Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life.
Taproot Foundation recruits marketing, HR and IT professionals for pro bono projects at non-profit groups–a great way to test the waters.
RetirementRevised.com is the companion website of Retire Smart, a 
April 5th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Many retirees (and early retirees) are taking to the road in RVs and finding satisfying work and volunteer opportunities as they travel. The RV lifestyle can be less expensive than the traditional lifestyle so reducing your expenses by obtaining a free RV site in exchange for working can make a difference to the budget. And there are jobs that pay quite well as many that are fun. Work at Disney World, a NASCAR race, in a national park, as a costumed character in a wild west re-enactment - those are just of few of the many possibilities.
Jaimie Hall - Bruzenak
author of Support Your RV Lifestyle! An Insider’s Guide to Working on the Road
April 7th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Mark,
Just read your article published in Hernando Today. I also looked up “Civic Ventures,” and was very impressed.
I am now 73 years old; 74 in May. During my working life I had ventures into three careers after college before settling in to 30 years with the State of California as a personnel analyst, then training manager for the last 12 years with the CA DMV. Along the way I got a Master’s in Public Administration.
Before entering state service I was High School Program Director for a branch of the Sacramento, CA YMCA, where I got my first glimpse of the challenges facing our society as it ages and increases in longevity. Bear in mind that this was in the mid-1960s–over 40 years ago–and we still have not confronted some of the major issues of increased longevity.
Back then we were trying to find answers to questions relating to longer lives, especially what people were going to do with themselves when they reached the common “retirement” age of 65 and could look forward to another 20 or more years of reasonably healthy life. It was said then that one could only spend so many days fishing or playing golf before boredom set in and without something productive and rewarding despair and probable death would result.
Two true stories to illustrate:
One of our friends was very active in the local, state, and national bodies of our church, the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ. He was a highway engineer in a mid-level executive position with the CA Division of Highways (now CALTRANS) and an avid golfer. True, he was an exceptional man in many ways, but still friendly, affable, and sometimes even a joker. Several months after he retired I asked him, “Scott, how’s your golf game?” He replied “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to play!” He lived a happy, healthy, and productive life for a number of years longer, dying accidentally when he slipped in his garage and hit his head on a step.
The second story is about another member of the same church who retired after many years working for the railroad. He had no similar activities either before or after retirement. I asked him one day how he liked retirement. “I hate it,” he said. Six months later he was dead.
The difference? Being involved in life. One had not only a career, but many other activities in a variety of areas; the other lost his identity and reason for living when he no longer had “a job.”
Since my own “retirement” I have had eight part-time jobs, all of them chosen because I read something in the paper and thought it might be fun to do, I could learn something, and make a few dollars besides. I have been a security guard, real estate photographer, marketing data collector, shoe sales person, and the most fun of all, tasting room host at two small California wineries. I taught a college course in public speaking, For several years I was Chapter Projects Coordinator for the 76 chapters of the National Space Society. I have written a newspaper column called “A Cook’s Kitchen,” which has been published in two newspapers, one for pay and one for the fun of it. Most recently I have been an instructor and District Coordinator for the AARP Driver Safety Program, the nation’s first and largest refresher program for drivers over the age of 50. I also write regularly for Space Future Journal, an on-line publication focusing on space tourism and space solar power.
I tell you all this not to brag, but to demonstrate that being active is the key to a mentally and physically healthy life after one moves from the daily working life to the life of opportunity. I have been saying for years that the term “retirement” should be removed from our vocabulary as it relates to the world of work. To me, “retirement” only meant that because I was fortunate to work for thirty years in a setting that provided excellent benefits for the remaining years of my life and could now explore. Others are not so fortunate financially, but I don’t think that matters as much as finding fun and rewarding things to do; new worlds to explore; new challenges for the mind; new opportunities; and the willingness to try new things just because they look interesting. I quit doing some of the things I tried because, well, I found out what I wanted to know about them and concluded I didn’t want to continue. If we had stayed in California I’d probably still be behind the bar in a winery, joshing with the customers, learning about the fascinating world of wines, and having a great time.
If you’ve stayed with me this long, I hope you can make some use of the stories I’ve told to encourage others to look at “retirement” as the opportunity to try some things they’ve thought about but not had the time, the energy, or the resources to look into. I’d like to continue to have contact with you; let me know what I could do to help others.
Sincerely,
G B Leatherwood