|
By Radha Basu
IF YOU'RE middle-aged, been recently laid off and think early retirement is the best option in this gloomy market, hold your horses.
Embarking on a socially productive second career may be a better option than drifting through the next 30 years of life in languor, loneliness and even poverty. null
Despite an epoch-changing recession, millions of older folk are flooding fields such as social services, health care and education in the United States, and finding both meaning and money in it.
More of this should happen here too, says American social entrepreneur-turned-author Marc Freedman, who has spent the past decade reinventing retirement in the US.
Not coincidentally, these same sectors are still actively hiring in Singapore. Last week, the Ministry of Education announced it needed 7,500 teachers and support staff this year. Nurses, therapists and social service professionals are also in demand.
'Despite the recession, there is an opportunity to bring together untapped resources and unmet needs in a way that benefits older people, industries short on talent and the broader society trying to adapt to demographic changes,' says Mr Freedman, who heads a non-profit organisation called Civic Ventures in San Francisco which helps mid-lifers begin second careers.
He will speak at the Reinventing Retirement Asia conference that opens tomorrow on 'encore careers', the subject of a book he penned in 2007.
Encore careers, he says, allow people to create a body of work in the second half of life that provides 'continued income, new meaning and social impact'. Beyond paying the bills, it involves 'using one's accumulated experience to solve social problems and create a better world'.
His push to help older folk get fresh jobs and discover life anew has come in the nick of time. The US is greying fast, with 10,000 baby-boomers - those born between 1946 and 1964 - turning 60 every day.
A comparative study, conducted by the US Census Bureau in 2000, showed that Singapore's elderly population will see a nearly fourfold increase between 2000 and 2030, compared to just a twofold rise in the US.
The world today, he says, is witnessing something much more profound than the reinvention of retirement.
'An entirely new stage of work and life is being crafted between the end of the middle years and the onset of true old age in the late 70s.'
Making the most of this transformation will require new thinking, new language, new social institutions and a new generation of public policies.
'This may sound daunting, but the potential payoff is enormous.'
Although not everyone is eschewing conventional retirement yet, the response so far has been heartening. A survey released last June showed that between five million and eight million Americans have already embarked on encore careers. Of those who have not, half aspired to.
Even if 5 per cent of the nearly 80 million baby-boomers who are moving into retirement embark on second careers that last a decade, it will be a 'windfall of talent', he says. 'The only comparable trend in the US to older people working longer is the influx of women into the labour force in the 60s and 70s.'
Soon, the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports will release the results of a local survey on the aspirations, lifestyle choices and financial and employment issues facing baby-boomers here. According to preliminary results, nearly half the 2,700 people interviewed said they want to work for as long as they can.
But at a time when job losses and unemployment are at record highs, how realistic is it to assume that such well-meaning aspirations will morph into hard- nosed reality? With the recession wiping out US$2 trillion (S$3 trillion) worth of retirement plans, older folk in America and Singapore need to work, but can they?
Mr Freedman says there is cause for optimism. 'Even as we shed tens of thousands of jobs in areas like financial services, there is job growth in education, health care, environmental work. Positions in the encore career sector are growing and are more encouraging than those in the broader economy.'
The non-profit sector in the US, for instance, will see 640,000 vacancies in the coming decade. The long-term structural changes being witnessed now will also 'far outlast' any downturn.
While some opt for second careers out of choice, increasingly such a move is becoming a necessity for many, who are unable to afford 30 years of retirement.
So isn't he simply making a virtue out of necessity? Don't most older folk really want to retire and travel the world, if possible?
'Absolutely. Very few people want to work till they drop like they did in the 19th century,' he concurs. By the time they reach their 50s, most people are desperate for a break, being jaded from long hours of work and the responsibilities of raising families.
In the past, a break was not necessary, as most people died shortly after retirement. But as lifespans increase and people stay healthy and alert way into their 80s, the notion of a mid-life break is slowly becoming popular.
'There is need for people to take a sabbatical - like a mid-life gap year.' He suggests that people take a break after the end of their primary careers to invest in 'renewing and retooling'. This could mean going back to school.
| 
