The Social-Purpose Encore Career: Baby Boomers, Civic Engagement, and the Next Stage of Work
2006; Volume: 30; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
Autores Tópico(s)
Youth Education and Societal Dynamics
ResumoPaid work may be how boomers choose to 'give back.' Much debate over the social contribution of the aging baby boom generation has hinged on whether the 77 million boomers will volunteer at levels comparable to those of their predecessors, most notably, the World War II generation. There's reason for concern, given the boomers' mixed performance as joiners and volunteers during their middle years. But the discussion misses a critical point. When all is said and done, paid work may be the most important way that boomers choose to give back For decades we've heard the warnings: The boomers are coming! And for decades the worries about providing for this group have come with a blizzard of statistics about the precise parameters of this demographic revolution. We now know a great deal about how many baby boomers are on the way into their 60s and beyond, exacdy when they will arrive, even where they're likely to reside. We know, for instance, that while a full quarter of the U.S. population will soon be over the age of 60, in the community of nations we are relative youngsters (United Nations Population Division, 2002). In Japan, Italy, South Korea, and Spain, for example, well beyond 40 percent of the population will be age 60-plus. Similarly, we are awash in projections about the financial side of this transformation- both for society and for individuals. We know the costs related to Social Security, Medicare, and other entidement programs, and we know that most baby boomers have not saved nearly enough to face the future with financial security. We know that, in America, we seem to fashion a new stage of life about once every hundred years. Before the nineteenth century, we had litde conception of childhood. Adolescence is the invention of the early part of the twentieth century, as we faced a proliferation of young people who were no longer children but not adults either. Today this process of invention is taking place in the period opening up between the middle years and true old age. While we don't yet have a name for this new stage of life, those hitting 60 today are not simply rewriting the rules of and aging; they are defining something entirely new-something that both puzzles and intrigues. Are these postmidlifers senior citizens? Elderly? They don't feel that way. Neither young nor old, they are finished with midlife, yet they can look out to the likelihood of decades of vitality before becoming truly old. What might they rightly aspire to in the next phase? How will they define success? While much about the goals and purpose of this period of lite remains up for grabs, a central, defining feature is emerging. It is work. Research shows that nearly 80 percent of these individuals are planning to remain in paid labor during their 60s and 70s (Quinn, 1999). Indeed, there is already evidence of sriifhhg labor patterns on the part of the preceding generation, as early levels off and millions of older workers remain in the workforce. In the past decade, we've seen the reversal in the fifty-year trend toward earlier (Walsh, 2001). In fact, the movement of millions of aging individuals away from earlier and into this new stage in their working lives constitutes the most significant movement around work in this country since millions of women broke through existing barriers in the 1960s and 1970s, taking on new roles in the labor market barred to their mother's generation. Three Major Trends Three major trends are driving this transformation to a new phase of work in mid and later life. First, boomers face growing insecurity around income and the cost and availability of health coverage. Individuals are not prepared to finance this new stage of life, as disappearing pensions, inadequate savings, and rising healthcare costs make traditional retirement increasingly unaffordable. When General Motors this year joined Verizon, IBM, and a raft of other companies cutting workers' pensions and retiree health benefits, Alicia Munnell, director of Boston College's Center for Retirement Research, declared, Our employer-based social welfare system is collapsing (Paton, 2006). …
Referência(s)